On Public Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, Lauren Pretorius, CEO of Campaigning for Cancer, moderated Designing patient-centric clinical trials, joined by Alessandro Boni, Vice President of Associazione PaLiNUro in Italy, Dr Kenneth Chen, Senior Consultant in Uro-oncology at Singapore General Hospital, and Anjali Malhotra, Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations at ImmunityBio.
Lauren set the terms of the discussion in her opening.
On Public Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, Marie Magenhann Cueto, Communications and Community Engagement Coordinator at the World Bladder Cancer Patient Coalition, and Charles Muya from the Kenyan Network of Cancer Organisations (KENCO) presented the “Bladder Cancer Awareness Month showcase”.
Bladder cancer is rare in Kenya, rarely talked about, and has no patient community to build on. So when KENCO received a BCAM Grant,
On Public Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, two members of our Scientific Advisory Board presented Latest developments in bladder cancer research: Prof. Jeremy Teoh, Professor and Assistant Dean (External Affairs) at the Faculty of Medicine, The Chinese University of Hong Kong and Vice Chair of the Board, and Dr Makarand Khochikar, Head of Urology and Urologic Oncology at KIMS Hospital,
On Public Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, Junichiro Sano of the Patient Association of Bladder Cancer Japan and Sanjeev Sharma, Co-Founder and Director of Bladder Cancer India and the Lung Connect India Foundation, presented Bladder cancer care realities around the world. Two countries, two very different health systems, and a set of problems that turned out to be strikingly similar.
Japan: thirty years of waiting
For about three decades after BCG (Bacillus Calmette-Guérin) treatment arrived in Japan,
Advocates Day closed the way it began: with the room doing the work together. The final session, “Shared evidence & impact: Shaping our next patient and carer survey,” used a World Café format, four tables, three short rounds, and members moving between them, to help shape the next chapter of WBCPC’s research.
Why now
Alex Filicevas, Executive Director of WBCPC, opened with a look back at the Coalition’s 2023 Global Patient and Carer Survey: nearly 1,200 respondents across 45 countries,
Conflict is not a sign something has gone wrong. It’s simply what happens whenever people with different needs, beliefs and backgrounds try to work toward the same goal. That was the reassuring starting point for “Conflict management within an organisation” a workshop on Advocates Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, led by Eric Sampson, Partner at Dramatic Difference.
Eric opened with a personal note: his own mother was successfully treated for bladder cancer,
No organisation, however small, has to do everything alone. That was the starting point for “Building collaboration and partnerships,” a workshop on Advocates Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, led by Adam Lynch, CEO of BEAT Bladder Cancer Australia, and Mădălina Iamandei, Executive Director of All.Can International, the multi-stakeholder cancer care coalition that WBCPC itself belongs to.
Why partnerships matter more than ever
Mădălina opened with a fact worth remembering: All.Can now spans 18 national coalitions and around 50 member organisations,
A photo with the health minister feels like progress. It usually isn’t. That was the opening line from Richard Vines, co-founder of Rare Cancers Australia, speaking on Advocates Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong. What actually moves outcomes for patients, he told the room, is not the photo. It’s everything that happens around it.
Everyone in the room is already doing advocacy
Richard opened by pushing back on a common assumption: that advocacy is something only policy specialists do.
Facebook group with no funding and no government contacts. A seat on the committee that decides which cancer drugs Taiwan’s national health insurance will pay for. That’s the distance the Taiwan Young Patient Association (TYPA) has travelled since 2017, and at Advocates Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, its Secretary General, Eric Liu, walked our members through exactly how.
From support group to seat at the table
TYPA started when Eric’s co-founder,
Would you fund a new bladder cancer drug that costs two and a half times more than the current treatment, works a little better, and comes with no proof yet that it helps people live longer? That was the question facing WBCPC members on Advocates Day of the World Bladder Cancer Patient Forum 2026 in Hong Kong, during a hands-on workshop, “Health Technology Assessment for patient advocates,” led by Fiona Pearce,
For general information, information about membership or policy information, please contact the WBCPC Secretariat at info@worldbladdercancer.org
For general information, information about membership or policy information, please contact the WBCPC Secretariat at info@worldbladdercancer.org
