Cure Leukaemia was founded in 2003 by Professor Charlie Craddock CBE and patient Graham Silk to allow patients with blood cancer access the remarkably effective and potentially life-saving new treatments which were becoming available.
In 2005, Cure Leukaemia helped secure a grant to build the Centre for Clinical Haematology within a larger building at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham. The Centre was opened in 2006 by former cricketer Ashley Giles MBE and former footballer Geoff Thomas who was himself a patient that beat the disease thanks to the work of Cure Leukaemia. The Centre allowed more patients like Graham and Geoff to be treated through this groundbreaking model, created 150 new jobs and facilitated the development of the second largest adult stem cell transplant programme in the UK. The Centre's success led to the then Prime Minister David Cameron hailing it as an international centre of excellence in haemato-oncology.
'This is science with the potential to change mankind’s history on this planet by helping defeat cancer.'
'By backing this Centre for Clinical Haematology and by backing Cure Leukaemia you will be making a direct impact; helping hundreds of thousands of people today to live a better life and avoid unnecessary suffering and death and at the same time hasten progress towards the eradication of this terrible disease.'
- George Freeman MP, February 2017
The Centre has seen such a steady growth of its world-class clinical trial programme in the last decade that it has been operating at maximum capacity for some time. The drug companies are creating new treatments at a faster rate than they can be tested and without more research nurses and this expansion of operations patients will continue to miss out on accessing these life-saving treatments.
Cure Leukaemia must now raise an additional £1m by December 31st 2017 in order to fully fund the expansion of the globally significant Centre for Clinical Haematology to double the capacity of the facility. To see how this transformational project will hasten global progress towards eradicating all forms of blood cancer click HERE.
Pictures from our launch event, Tuesday 17 January:
