Cancer Research UK Gibraltar branch celebrates £2m milestone

Cancer Research UK Gibraltar branch has reached a fundraising milestone of £2m collected over the past 58 years.

The charity has been fundraising for decades and this year’s Walk for Life raised around £140,000 breaking the record across the UK.

For Chairperson Annette Goodman, the milestone marks a great success for past and present members of the Gibraltar branch of Cancer Research UK.

She said the charity celebrated raising £1m in 2017 and has been able to double that figure in under a decade.

Ms Goodman said the committee organising the Walk for Life are brilliant and work hard to ensure the event goes ahead, rain or shine.

On Wednesday evening the charity celebrated the milestone, thanking supporters and sponsors.

Cancer Research UK Relationship Manager Sharon Baldwin, Divisional Senior Manager Samantha Williams, and Professor of Clinical Trials Gareth Griffiths told the Chronicle how the donations make a real impact on research and people’s lives.

Ms Baldwin said it was a “huge milestone” and “incredible achievement” for the Gibraltar committee, adding that this allows for researchers that develop the new treatments and early diagnostic tests in the future.

“Relay for Life 2025 was just an amazing experience, it really was,” Ms Baldwin said.

“I'm so proud of them for putting it together, making it such an incredible experience, getting so many people to partake.”

“The actual fundraising itself, it was record-breaking.”

Ms Williams added that Gibraltar has been incredible in its fundraising efforts.

Prof Griffiths works in the Southampton Clinical Trials Unit at the University of Southampton, which is one of seven Cancer Research Care Trials Units, and the unit works on around 50 trials at any one time.

“I think also it's really important to say that the £2 million milestone achievement is incredibly significant, because there are only a very small number of groups that fundraise for the charity across the UK, such as Channel Islands and Guernsey, who have reached that kind of level. It's incredible,” Ms Williams said.

Prof Griffiths described how donations make a real difference to the work he carries out in clinical trials and across the UK.

The clinical trials research prevention and new treatments, and he pointed to cancer vaccines where scientists can “almost take a cancer from a patient, put it in the laboratory, and then create a vaccine specific to that patient and send it back to them”.

He said there has been “an explosion of technology to try and detect cancer early”.

“We know that if we can catch that cancer early, we're more likely to cure it,” Prof Griffiths said.

“At the heart of everything we do is discovery.”

“Every trial we do, we ask the patients ‘can we have some of your blood if there's a little bit of cancer left over’, and we send that back to the laboratories to understand exactly which patients benefit from which treatments, so we can develop new treatments or tailor treatments to certain individuals. It makes a real difference.”

“We couldn't do that without the funding from Cancer Research UK and all the wonderful people that are raising money to contribute to that.”

The Minister for Health, Gemma Arias-Vasquez, commended the charity describing how this was an “amazing milestone” which showcases how the community comes together.

Mrs Arias-Vasquez highlighted how the GHA Oncology Suite will be opening next month and donations help improve services.

“I'm frequently asked about how the GHA relies on donations,” she said.

“Health is one of the ministries that, however much money we throw at it, you can carry on throwing money at it and we can always improve the service.”

“Ask the medical director about how much we can improve the service through working with donations such as cancer research.”

She said the GHA is expanding its oncology service and she thanked the charity for its contributions to research.