"Grey’s Anatomy" actor Patrick Dempsey, known affectionately as "McDreamy" for his part as a doctor on the TV show, has a long history with Amgen dating all the way back to 2007.
Now, amid a new cancer awareness campaign from the U.S. biopharma, Dempsey and his friend Amanda sat down to record a conversation for Amgen's "Every Patient Counts, Every Story Matters."
This campaign is in tandem with nonprofit organization StoryCorps and aims to raise awareness about different types of cancer through the sharing of personal stories.
These stories include Dempsey’s, whose mother died of cancer in 2014, and Amanda's, who lost her mother to the disease in 2007 but was then cruelly diagnosed herself 10 years later. “My mom died so quickly, it was horrific,” she says candidly in the interview. “And I thought that was my destiny.”
She said though, that “thankfully, that wasn’t my destiny,” and she survived the disease, but she added that cancer “can feel like a really lonely thing, but it doesn’t have to be.”
Dempsey reflects on his mother’s diagnosis: “I felt so helpless,” he explains. “Where do you go? Who do you talk to? And I was like, well, God; if we’re going through this, how many other people [are]?”
The idea is to boost awareness of the different ways cancer can affect those diagnosed and those around them. There are more stories on Amgen’s YouTube channel.
Dempsey, who also founded and runs the nonprofit cancer organisation the Dempsey Center, has worked on several projects with Amgen before, including in 2016 in its "Breakaway from Cancer" initiative, and also appeared in a public service announcement.
Amgen markets a range of drugs for cancer patients including Neupogen, Neulasta, Blincyto, Imlygic and most recently its much-hyped KRAS lung cancer drug Lumakras, a potential future blockbuster.