2022-2027 Strategic Plan
Max creates solutions and overcomes obstacles for every patient, every day.
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Pat Garcia-Gonzalez
Chief Executive Officer of The Max Foundation
Accelerating health equity has been The Max Foundation’s focus for over 25 years. Established to prevent other families from the devastation of losing a child to cancer, The Max Foundation is a bridge between patients and treatment, focusing on those no one else is helping and saving lives that would otherwise be lost.
Three decades after our family had to emigrate from Latin America to the U.S. to seek treatment for our child Max, today most new and highly effective cancer treatments are still unavailable to patients in many countries. This is partly due to a broadly held, old- world belief that cancer cannot be treated in the developing world. At The Max Foundation, we do not accept this belief and as a result, we have extended thousands of patients’ lives.
Since our founding, our focus has been on developing the systems needed to deliver lifesaving drugs safely and effectively to patients in low-and-middle-income countries, demonstrating that it can indeed be done. Our mission in the next five years is to change perceptions so it will no longer be acceptable to leave these patients behind. We have set our sights on an ambitious strategy to double our impact and treat thousands more patients, to expand partnerships across the global health sector, and to amplify our voice and influence.
Geography must not dictate one’s destiny. All people should be able to face critical illness with dignity and hope. We can prevent unnecessary suffering and premature death and because we can, we must.
As humanitarians and as leaders, we have a moral imperative to ensure access to safe, high-impact medicine for all patients now. We urge you to join us as we expand The Max Foundation’s lifesaving work around the globe.
Part One: Our Start
"Max is right in the middle of doctors, patients, and pharmaceutical companies. They are able to manage this triangle and keep everything in balance … and they do it amazingly, day in and day out."
— Nirmesh, living with leukemia in India
Our vision is a world where access to high-impact medicines, where geography is not destiny, and where all people can strive for health with dignity and hope.
We are on a mission to accelerate health equity.
We do this by delivering medication, technology, and services to patients facing cancer and other critical illnesses, focusing our energy on those no one else is helping.
We are driven by a set of core beliefs
- We believe all human life has equal value, and all people facing illness deserve access to immediate and effective treatment no matter where they live.
- We believe achieving health equity requires a holistic approach and we work collaboratively at all levels, knowing the result is better for it.
- We believe progress requires dedication beyond the ordinary. We forge new pathways whenever necessary and are obsessed with overcoming any obstacle to save more lives.
- We believe we must develop innovative solutions. We aim to think ambitiously and to leverage novel technologies and approaches to improve outcomes for our patients.
Our Ecosystem
Our Approach
Part Two: Our Future
I was, and still am, a beneficiary of The Max Foundation. I was diagnosed with CML when I was a first-year resident. The lifesaving service Max provided was the inspiration that led me to study hematology and forever strive to pay the debt forward.
— Dr. Fisihatsion Tadesse and his family from Ethiopia
5 Year Focus: Core Strategies & Goals
| Core Goals by 2027, we will... | Five-Year Metrics by 2027, we will... |
|---|---|
| Double the number of new patients we help each year | Treat an additional 25,000 newly diagnosed patients and provide an additional 50,000 molecular diagnostic tests |
| Double the number of diseases we support | Increase our portfolio to help patients afflicted with 20 diseases for which treatment is not accessible in their country |
| Double the number of donors in the Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment | Increase the size of our Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment to 10 donors |
| Expand geographically to provide targeted access where there is none today | Establish access programs in 10 new countries to increase our reach to 85 |
Treat More Patients
Invest in our regional teams and strengthen our local presence
Our regional teams are our greatest asset and facilitate all our patient programming across the globe. Over the next five years we will build on these already robust regional teams and expand our local capability through recruitment, training, and support. Our expansive network of physicians and partner institutions are part of these teams and we will increasingly supply them with enhanced information and tools.
Expand global programs to new countries
We plan to launch operations in 10 new countries to enable physicians to provide life- saving treatment to patients currently without access. This will require a new and expanded physician network capable of prescribing and supporting new treatments as well as relationships with new partner institutions around the world.
Amplify Our Voice
Amplify our patients’ voices
Our regional teams are our greatest asset and facilitate all our patient programming across the globe. Over the next five years we will build on these already robust regional teams and expand our local capability through recruitment, training, and support. Our expansive network of physicians and partner institutions are part of these teams and we will increasingly supply them with enhanced information and tools.
Expand the impact of our programs on countries’ health systems
Our work in not simply Max Access Solutions. We witness the daily impact of our programming on the health systems of the countries in which we work. We plan to double down on this programming and scale up our work in diagnostics, physician support, patient education, data systems and sharing, global advocacy, and other vital strategies that improve the overall health systems we support. It is possible and sustainable to both address the urgent needs of patients and collaborate on health system strengthening around the world.
Sustain our work through robust partnerships
Expand our Humanitarian Partnership for Access to Critical Treatment (HPACT)
Expanding our current pharmaceutical collaborations is critical. It will enable us to expand our programming to treat more illnesses and serve more patients. It will also further promote a collaboration focused on ensure global access to all new medications.
Strengthen organizational and operational systems
Our work in not simply Max Access Solutions. We witness the daily impact of our programming on the health systems of the countries in which we work. We plan to double down on this programming and scale up our work in diagnostics, physician support, patient education, data systems and sharing, global advocacy, and other vital strategies that improve the overall health systems we support. It is possible and sustainable to both address the urgent needs of patients and collaborate on health system strengthening around the world.
Geography should not be destiny.
Together we can prevent unnecessary suffering and premature death today.
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Raise a cup, drink to a cause
You're invited to Chai for Cancer Seattle on April 29th! Join us for refreshments, entertainment, and community building, aimed at raising awareness for patients coping with cancers that require lifelong treatment and care. Attendance is free, RSVPs encouraged.
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