Cinderella Therapeutics started as a foundation to bring ‘stepchild’ medicines (medicines that no company wants to produce) for a fair price to patients. From the beginning, there was a warm relation on joint initiatives with Inspire2Live. We share our focus on the patient and our activistic approach as well. The founder of Cinderella, Dick van Bekkum, became our hero and mentor. In 2020 Cinderella decided to stop her activities and to donate her remaining money (approximately € 150.000) to Inspire2Live. We submitted the following three ideas for spending this money with approval by the Cinderella Board.

Pancreatic cancer and pain

Inspire2Live, through its network, discovered that a good, safe and cheap drug, Lidocaine, works excellently against pain in pancreatic cancer. A trial, in cooperation with Amsterdam UMC and ErasmusMC will start soon. Success will mean that pancreatic cancer patients will have half a year or more of a much-improved quality of life. After the trial, professor Tuveson (Cold Spring Harbour Laboratories) is planning to research the deeper cause of the underlying mechanism. This is expected to lead to further application of Lidocaine and other anti-inflammatory drugs.

Open Source Pharma Inspire2Live

Cancer is a mobile disease. It changes while you look at it.

This idea is the base of ‘Open Source Pharma’, which exists now out of: 1) sequencing the tumour, 2) matching this data to the clinical genetic data of all existing drugs. By matching, a range of promising drugs is created for the best treatment, 3) test the results in combinations on organoids, tissue culture, organ on a chip and 4) if necessary Artificial Intelligence should be considered for the determination of treatment. 5) Finally, we monitor and adjust the treatments, and thereby create learning loops. Totally personalized medicine combined with creation of priceless data for future research. It goes without saying that Inspire2Live urges for fair pricing.

World Campus

Inspire2Live started shortly after our Annual Congress 2020 with an initiative to build hubs around the world. We now have hubs in Austria, Bulgaria, Latin America (Brazil, Costa Rica), Africa (Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa), Armenia, Caribbean, China, France, India, Italy, Romania, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, United Kingdom, United States and working on many more. We started a ‘World Campus’ where the keyword is ‘Reciprocity’. Each month we bring all the patient advocates and scholar activists together and share our knowledge, experiences, needs, ideas and assistance. It is amazing that within 6 months there are dozens of initiatives. It turns out that it is surprisingly easy and effective to help each other in major ways. Simply by sharing.

We are proud and grateful for the donation and will inform you frequently about these important initiatives that are made possible by Cinderella.

Peter Kapitein
Patient Advocate and CEO of Inspire2Live