A Message from the IMF Chairman & Director of Global Patient Initiatives

Dear Reader,

The IMF’s Global Myeloma Action Network (GMAN) is a group of myeloma advocates and patient organizations from around the world whose aim is to support the needs of patients with myeloma. GMAN’s global mission is to improve the lives of myeloma patients, raise myeloma awareness, enhance the capabilities of myeloma patient advocacy groups, build the capacity of local myeloma organizations, and increase worldwide access to medicine and treatment. To advance this mission, the annual GMAN Summit brings together participants from far and wide, and you can read more about this year’s event beginning on page 14 of this edition of Myeloma Today

A special feature of the GMAN Summit is the reporting by representatives of patient organizations about the outcomes of projects that were funded by GMAN’s Susie Novis Durie (SND) Grants, as well as the announcement of the next year’s recipients. These Grants were created to help member organizations fulfill their missions and increase education, awareness, and access to treatment. Past projects supported by the SND Grants have included in-person and online educational meetings and seminars, translation and distribution of patient education materials, development of smartphone apps, media campaigns to promote earlier diagnosis of myeloma, the deployment of a myeloma educator to remote regions with limited access to communication, the training of nurses in areas where medical doctors are scarce, and many more creative and effective initiatives.

The recipients of the 2023 Susie Novis Durie Grants include the following projects, listed in alphabetical order by country:

 Fundación Argentina de Mieloma Argentina

The “Living Well with Myeloma” is a monthly radio program in Spanish. A total of 8 live episodes will also be recorded and archived for easy access online. Each episode will feature a myeloma healthcare professional addressing a specific educational topic of interest to patients.

 Associação Portuguesa Contra a Leucemia Portugal

A video and podcast series will be recorded in Portuguese, consisting of 20 interviews with healthcare professionals and blood cancer patients, including patients with myeloma. The goal of this series is to reach younger patients with myeloma and to make challenging medical concepts easier to understand.

 Korea Blood Disease and Cancer Association South Korea

“Dahaeng” means “it’s fortunate that we’re together” in Korean, and a “Dahaeng Box” is a comfort kit assembled with a variety of products intended to help the recipient feel better. Such self-care kits will be tailored to alleviate the effects of peripheral neuropathy in patients with myeloma, then distributed.

 Kanser Savaşçıları Derneği Republic of Turkey

More than 15 million people were affected by the recent tragic earthquakes in the Republic of Turkey. Some myeloma centers were destroyed, and many patients had to move to the city of Ankara in order to continue their treatments. This project will offer logistic support to myeloma patients in Ankara.

Next year, we will learn the outcomes of these projects and will share them with you. We are so proud of all that GMAN members have accomplished, and we are honored to support their good work with funding from the Susie Novis Durie Grants program. Warm regards,

Susie Durie IMF Founder Director, Global Patient Initiatives

Dr. Brian G.M. Durie IMF Chairman Chief Scientific Officer