The Malcom Orlando Ivy Foundation & Partners For Patients NGO Join Forces to Launch ‘The Worldwide Cancer Voices Forum’

WORLDWIDE CANCER VOICES FORUM (The Voices). Hearing the Pain and Unmet Needs of People Affected by Cancer Worldwide

LUGANO, TICINO, SWITZERLAND, August 31, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — The Malcom Orlando Ivy Foundation (TMOIF), based in Wheaton, Illinois and founded by Mrs. Michelle WareIvy, and Partners For Patients NGO (PFP.NGO), headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland and founded by Dr. Mimi Choon-Quinones, are joining forces to strengthen patient and care partner advocacy and launch the Worldwide Cancer Voices Forum (“The Voices”), a new monthly global gathering dedicated to hearing directly from people affected by cancer.

The inaugural Worldwide Cancer Voices Forum will take place on September 1, 2026, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. EDT (16:30 to 17:30 CEST). The Forum will thereafter convene on the 1st of every month at the same time (10:30 a.m. ET / 16:30 CET) and on the same Zoom link, creating a consistent global platform for the worldwide cancer community.

The Forum will bring together patients, care partners, physicians, nurses, patient advocates, parliamentarians and pharmaceutical partners to listen, learn and openly discuss the pain, suffering, disparities, inequities and unmet needs that continue to affect people living with cancer and the families who care for them, and to reflect what is heard into legislation.

WORLDWIDE CANCER VOICES FORUM (The Voices)

Patients • Care Partners • Physicians • Nurses • Patient Advocates • Parliamentarians • Pharmaceutical Partners

Hearing the Pain and Unmet Needs of People Affected by Cancer Worldwide THE GLOBAL CANCER BURDEN IN 2024

• 20.6 million new cancer cases worldwide (19.5 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer)

• 9.8 million cancer deaths (9.7 million excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer)

• 1 in 5 people develop cancer in their lifetime

• 34.4 million new cases projected by 2050, an increase of 67 percent

• Approximately 1 in 9 men and 1 in 13 women die of cancer

Source: GLOBOCAN 2024 estimates, International Agency for Research on Cancer and the American Cancer Society, published in CA: A Cancer Journal for Clinicians, July 2026. WHY THIS FORUM IS NEEDED

Despite extraordinary advances in cancer science, diagnostics, medicines, precision medicine and clinical trials, profound disparities and inequities in cancer care remain.

Too many patients around the world continue to experience delayed or missed diagnoses, inadequate access to specialists and diagnostics, barriers to medicines and clinical trials, financial hardship, unequal standards of care, and enormous emotional and physical suffering. Care partners and families often carry an equally significant burden, frequently without adequate recognition, resources or support.

The Worldwide Cancer Voices Forum has been created to provide a recurring space where those realities can be heard directly. The Forum will not simply speak about patients and care partners. It will listen to them. A COLLABORATION GROUNDED IN PATIENT AND CARE PARTNER ADVOCACY

Mrs. Michelle Ware-Ivy brings her deeply personal experience as a multiple myeloma care partner and founder of the Malcom Orlando Ivy Foundation (TMOIF) to this Forum. Her dedication is rooted in the promise she made to her beloved husband, Malcom Orlando Ivy, and she carries it forward by amplifying the voices of patients, care partners and families impacted by multiple myeloma, particularly those in underserved and underrepresented populations.

“I made a promise to my husband that I would be the voice for the voiceless. This Forum is how I keep that promise, month after month, for every family still waiting to be heard,” said Mrs. Michelle Ware-Ivy, Founder of The Malcom Orlando Ivy Foundation.

Dr. Mimi Choon-Quinones brings the work of Partners For Patients NGO (PFP.NGO) and its focus on Legislative Patient and Physician Advocacy, connecting the lived experiences and unmet needs of patients and care partners with physicians, nurses, healthcare stakeholders, parliamentarians, pharmaceutical partners and policymakers, and translating them into legislation, public policy and health diplomacy.

“Patients and care partners tell us exactly what is wrong. Our responsibility is to make certain that what they tell us reaches the people who write the laws,” said Dr. Mimi Choon-Quinones, Founder of Partners For Patients NGO.

Together, Mrs. Michelle Ware-Ivy and Dr. Mimi Choon-Quinones are establishing a monthly platform where people who experience cancer personally and people positioned to influence cancer care can sit at the same table.

“Cancer is affecting too many people. We need to partner with as many collaborators as possible,” said H.E. Chief Fortune Charumbira, former President of the Pan-African Parliament, the legislative body of the African Union. WHAT THE FORUM WILL EXAMINE

The first monthly Forum will begin with a fundamental question:

What disparities, inequities, pain and suffering still exist in cancer care, and what have we still failed to address?

The conversation will follow the complete cancer journey:

• Prevention and early detection: awareness, screening, delayed and missed diagnoses

• Diagnosis and access: specialists, pathology, biomarkers and genomic testing

• Treatment and research: medicines, innovative therapies, clinical trials, blood cancers and multiple myeloma care

• Equity: underserved and underrepresented communities, geographic and socioeconomic inequities, financial toxicity and the economic burden of cancer

• Living with cancer: care partner burden and support, mental, emotional and psychosocial consequences, lifestyle medicine and brain health before, during and after treatment, survivorship

• Nursing, frontline healthcare challenges, palliative and end of life care, patient rights and equitable access to healthcare The Forum will examine disparities across all cancers, while recognizing that different cancers, populations, countries and healthcare systems face distinct challenges. ASKING THE QUESTIONS THAT STILL NEED ANSWERS FOR LEGISLATIVE FRAMEWORKS

• Why are some patients still diagnosed too late?

• Why does where someone lives continue to influence whether they can receive timely cancer care?

• Why are potentially life saving diagnostics, medicines and clinical trials accessible to some patients but out of reach for others?

• Why do some racial, ethnic, socioeconomic and geographically underserved populations continue to experience disparities in cancer outcomes?

• Why haven’t lifestyle medicine and brain health become part of treatment options and survivorship programs?

• What are care partners experiencing every day that healthcare systems and policymakers may never see?

• Why are care partners themselves suffering, during and alongside the patient’s suffering?

• What is a care partner to do when they can see that a physician’s education or

Mimi Choon-Quinones
Partners For Patients NGO
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