England footballer Geoff Thomas demands government funding to beat leukaemia

Former England footballer, Geoff Thomas is pressing the Government for urgently needed cash to develop and deliver new leukaemia treatments.

 

Thomas, a leukaemia survivor himself, is leading a presentation to the All Party Cancer Group of MPs at Westminster, at the invitation of MP's Julie Kirkbride and the committee Chairman Dr Ian Gibson on Monday June 9th. He is urging the Government to back his 5 year, £20m public/private funding campaign to finance drug and other treatment trials to tackle leukaemia and other blood cancers. The Geoff Thomas Foundation is aiming to finance specialist research at 6 of the UK’s top research hospitals situated in London, Birmingham, Manchester, Nottingham, Oxford and Cambridge. "These new drug and transplant therapies will save lives and it's only a lack of money that's stopping them getting into clinical trials and creating new treatments for patients. We are determined to persuade the Government to invest in our initiative" said Geoff.

 

Professor Charles Craddock of the University Hospital in Birmingham added, "Currently the development of these new and often complex therapies is being hampered by the absence of an appropriate clinical trials infrastructure allowing their rapid introduction into clinical practice. As a consequence patients are failing to benefit from the billions of pounds which have been invested into basic medical research and there is now an urgent need to fund a network of leukaemia trials units across the UK.”

 

Geoff Thomas is available for interviews and a press briefing also attended by Professor Charles Craddock will be held at the House of Commons at 11.30 in Dining Room A (access via Cromwell Green Entrance) on Monday 9th of June. Further photograph and interview opportunities will be available at 2.30 after the presentation.

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