The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) has marked National Blood Cancer Awareness Month with its 31st annual Light The Night campaign—and put its recently installed top pharma sponsor of the events in the spotlight.
Each fall, the LLS holds events across the U.S. where attendees carry different colored lanterns—white for cancer survivors—and take part in a ceremony. This year, nearly 100 communities will take part. The campaign, the centerpiece of the LLS’ annual events, is intended to raise money for blood cancer research and patient resources and support.
A who’s who of blood cancer drug developers support the LLS campaign. AbbVie’s Pharmacyclics and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen used to be the top sponsors. However, with the companies’ blood cancer drug Imbruvica now in decline, Pharmacyclics and Janssen ceded the top sponsorship spot this year.
BeiGene signed up to be the “national presenting sponsor of survivorship and hope” earlier this year. The three-year deal put BeiGene, which is working to win share from Imbruvica with its lymphoma drug Brukinsa, at the top of the list of pharma supporters of the campaign.
Gilead Sciences and Kite Oncology, the biotech’s CAR-T group, are the “national presenting sponsor of celebration and community,” securing them second spot on the list. The other drugmakers are grouped together at the bottom under the title “luminary.” AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Daiichi Sankyo, Eli Lilly, Genentech, J&J, Novartis and Pfizer are the names in that group.
The list of LLS’ meetings starts with an event in New York on Sept. 13 and runs until a virtual gathering in November. The listings show teams at multiple companies have raised money for the campaign, with the level of activity highest in industry hot spots such as Boston and San Francisco.