When partners, policymakers and patient advocates gathered at the Ordem dos Médicos in Portugal on September 10, 2026 to launch the second phase of ECHoS, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, was among the voices in the room there to make sure patients community remains at the centre of Europe’s response to cancer. Alex took part as Chair of the WECAN Foundation, the European network of cancer patient advocacy organisations that WBCPC is proud to belong to.
Together with partners from across Europe, we gathered on September 4, 2026, in Budapest for the annual consortium meeting of BCLEAR: Bladder Cancer Literacy for All: Advancing Knowledge and Care in Europe. A full day of discussion gave the consortium the chance to review our progress and agree the next steps for our shared work.
Co-funded by the European Union and coordinated by the European Association of Urology (EAU),
Our Project Coordinator, Theodoros Yfantis, spoke in Brussels at the event “Unseen, Uncounted, Unaddressed: The Case for Continence Health in EU Policy”, organised by the European Association of Urology (EAU) on June 24, 2026, as part of the Urge to Act campaign and hosted by MEP Tomislav Sokol.
The event brought together patient organisations, European Commission representatives and healthcare professionals to make the case for continence as a health policy priority.
Our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, recently sat down with Dr Ashish Kamat, MD, Chair of the WBCPC Scientific Advisory Board, for a conversation with UroToday and GU OncToday at the American Urological Association Annual Meeting (AUA2026) in Washington DC. Together, they discussed new findings from the recently published Bladder Cancer Burden Survey, and what the data reveals about the real impact of bladder cancer treatment on the lives of patients.
Today, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, co-moderated a high-level event at the European Parliament in Brussels, hosted by All.Can International. The event brought together Members of the European Parliament, health system experts, researchers, and patient advocates to address a question that sits at the heart of our work: what does it actually take to make cancer care work for the person receiving it?
The timing could not have been more important.
Bladder cancer is more than a clinical diagnosis. For the people living with it, it is years of treatment, repeated check-ups and a quiet emotional weight that shapes everyday life in ways rarely captured in the clinic.
On May 14, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, joined a panel discussion at in Washington, D.C., held ahead ofthe American Urological Association (AUA) Annual Meeting 2026. The panel brought patient advocates, clinicians and researchers together to discuss findings from a new global survey on how current standard-of-care treatments for non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) affect patients’
Today, at the Biosimilar Medicines Conference 2026 in Amsterdam, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, spoke on behalf of the bladder cancer patient community during the session “EU Biosimilar Strategy: Synergies between Horizon Scanning and Capacity Building”.
Organised by Medicines for Europe, the conference brought together all interested stakeholders from across Europeand beyond to discuss the future of biosimilar medicines and how they can help improve access for patients and strengthen healthcare systems.
At the Cancer Drug Development Forum (CDDF) Workshop 2026, held on March 30, 2026, in Brussels, Belgium, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, spoke during the session “Challenges in the Landscape of a Global Development Strategy, including patient access”, focusing on the role of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in cancer clinical trials.
PROs are used in clinical trials to capture how patients feel during and after treatment. They provide important insight into symptoms,
At the European Association of Urology Congress 2026 (EAU26), we hosted the session “Understanding and overcoming patient barriers to discussing urinary symptoms linked to bladder cancer.” The session explored why some people delay seeking medical advice when experiencing urinary symptoms and what can be done to support earlier diagnosis.
During the session, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, presented research examining the behavioural factors that influence whether people seek medical care when experiencing urinary symptoms that could be linked to bladder cancer.
At the European Association of Urology Congress 2026 (EAU26), we presented the BCLEAR (Bladder Cancer Literacy for All) project during the session “Health Literacy in Bladder Cancer” at the Patient Advocacy Plaza. The session explored how improving health literacy can help people recognise symptoms earlier, better understand their diagnosis and participate more actively in decisions about their care.
During the session, our Executive Director, Alex Filicevas, together with Renée Leenen,
