Celgene UK won the award for the best Socially Responsible Initiative at this year’s PMEA Awards, which were hosted in London last week.
The ‘Breaking the Mould’ project saw Celgene employees partner with UK charity World Child Cancer (WWC) to improve diagnosis, treatment and care for children in the developing world.
As well as raising money through marathons, bike-a-thons and sponsored walks, the Celgene team donated soft toys to children at each of WWC’s projects to make a real difference for the 160,000 children in developing countries who develop cancer each year.
The PMEA judges praised ‘Breaking the Mould’ as a “fantastic and inspirational SRI initiative, which tackled a real need in developing countries”.
They added: “Its implementation potentially involved all employees and was clearly linked to the employee engagement process.
“The objectives were laudable and the implementation made a big difference to many children’s lives.”
Meanwhile, the pharma firm took home a high commendation in the Established Product Management category for its ‘75 Not Out’ work on treating MDS in patients over 75.
The campaign centred around Celgene’s Vidaza treatment for MDS and saw hundreds of elderly MDS patients treble their chances of surviving past the two-year mark.
The judges said: “There was a compelling, evidence-based story underpinning this work and the team behind it really understood how to target their patient population in order to successfully tackle the challenges of ageism.”
Celgene was also a finalist with ’75 Not Out’ in the Rare Diseases and Orphan Drugs group.
Meanwhile, its ‘Leading the edutainment revolution’ social media project supported by Bedrock Healthcare Communications was a finalist in the Innovation category, and the firm was shortlisted for the prestigious PMEA Company of the Year title.
The PMEA programme, run by PMLiVE publisher PMGroup, is specifically designed to recognise and commend excellence in improving patient outcomes.