Insurance and pensions company Royal London Ireland has announced that it will continue its partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research and donate a further €206,000 to the charity this year.
The donation will support research led by UCC’s Dr Andrew Lyndsey into Glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive cancerous brain tumour in adults.
“Our partnership with Breakthrough Cancer Research is very important to everyone in our organisation,” said Noel Freeley, CEO of Royal London Ireland.
“We are committed to helping to fund the lifesaving work they do through their ongoing research. Reducing inequalities in cancers with the lowest survival rates can make a meaningful difference to patient outcomes, now and in the years ahead.
“This aligns with our company’s social impact strategy to help drive meaningful change for wider society.”
Orla Dolan, CEO of Breakthrough Cancer Research, said: “Thanks to Royal London Ireland’s exceptional support, we can invest in vital new brain cancer research, an area where greater advances are urgently needed for patients facing this particularly difficult-to-treat disease.
“With Royal London Ireland’s funding, we have been able to start a new multi-year project in partnership with Research Ireland into Glioblastoma, the most common and aggressive brain tumour in adults.
“Glioblastomas claim over 200,000 lives worldwide every year and treatment has stayed largely the same for two decades.
“Research has transformed cancer survival rates, with more people living longer after a diagnosis than ever before. With Royal London Ireland’s support, we can now focus on improving outcomes for cancers that have not yet seen the same progress.”
Cancer is the leading cause of death in adults in Ireland, and the National Cancer Registry Ireland (NCRI) estimates that one in two people are expected to receive a cancer diagnosis in their lifetime.
Inequalities can impact the risk of getting or surviving cancer due to differences in peoples’ health, their opportunity to lead a healthy life, their access to care and the quality of care they receive.
Breakthrough Cancer Research focuses on the cancers with the poorest survival outcomes, responsible for almost half of all cancer deaths in Ireland. Its mission is to make more survivors of cancer through research.
The partnership aligns with Royal London Ireland’s commitment to protecting customers and communities from the impact of serious life events, including cancer.
Royal London Ireland is also a sponsor of Breakthrough Cancer Research’s Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope exhibition, which celebrates Irish innovation in tackling cancer.
The free exhibition is in the St Stephen’s Green shopping centre in Dublin until the end of April.
Pictured at the launch of Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, Dublin is Professor Luke O’Neill, Immunologist and Exhibition Ambassador. (Pic: Leon Farrell/Photocall Ireland)
In previous years, Royal London Ireland’s funding has gone towards Breakthrough Cancer Research Innovation Grant projects such as Dr Patrick Redmond’s ‘Development and Modelling of a Non-Specific Symptoms (NSS) Cancer Referral Pathway to Improve Early Detection in Ireland’ (RCSI) and Dr Diarmuid O’Connor’s ‘Investigating the Role of TRPA1 in Lung Cancer’ (St James’s Hospital/Trinity College Dublin).
Photo: Pictured at the launch of Cancer Revolution: Science, Innovation and Hope at Stephen’s Green Shopping Centre, Dublin is Orla Dolan, CEO of Breakthrough Cancer. (Pic: Leon Farrell/Royal London Ireland)