Helsinn, a Swiss pharmaceutical group focused on building quality cancer care, announces that the Group has provided a grant to the European Society for Medical Oncology (“ESMO”) for a preceptorship event dedicated to supportive and palliative care for physicians.

Lugano, Switzerland, February 15, 2017 – Helsinn, a Swiss pharmaceutical group focused on building quality cancer care, announces that the Group has provided a grant to the European Society for Medical Oncology (“ESMO”) for a preceptorship event dedicated to supportive and palliative care for physicians.

The preceptorship course will take place in Zurich on February 20-21, 2017 and will touch on a broad range of aspects related to cancer supportive and palliative care. The key learning objectives of the preceptorship are to:

• Understand mechanisms of the key symptoms and syndromes: pain, fatigue, anorexia, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation, mucositis, depression and breathlessness, and their association with cancer disease and anticancer-treatment
• Describe the main pharmacological, physical, educational, communicative and coordinate interventions for management of the syndromes of cachexia and malnutrition, and key symptoms
• Understand integration of screening for, and assessment of, symptoms and other palliative/supportive care needs, and management in routine oncology care
• Describe required competences of multidisciplinary teams for multimodal management
• Understand the key issues of cancer rehabilitation
• Understand bone health in cancer patients
• Understand the risk and management of venous Thromboembolism in cancer patients
• Understand Cardiotoxicity and its management in the area of targeted agents
• Learn  the ESMO Clinical Practice Guidelines relevant for the topics discussed

The Chair of the event will be Dr Florian Strasser MD, Associate Professor in the Clinic Oncology/Hematology at the Cantonal Hospital St.Gallen, Head of Oncological Palliative Medicine at Cantonal Hospital St Gallen, Switzerland, where he is responsible for the clinical and research activities in Palliative Oncology and in Geriatric Oncology. He is also substantially involved in Geriatric Oncology, Supportive Care and Cancer Rehabilitation for both in- and out-patients in the Comprehensive Cancer Center.

The co-Chair is Dr Karin Jordan who, since 2010, has been Associate Professor of Medical Oncology and Supportive Care in the Department of Oncology/Haematology at the University Hospital, Halle, and who has just recently changed position and is now working at the University of Heidelberg.

The event is expected to be attended by members of ESMO from around the world. The aim of these educational courses, which focus on teaching standard of care in specific areas, is to provide “state of the art” lectures in an interactive setting including formal presentations and interaction between experts and attendees presenting clinical cases.

The full meeting program is available here.

Sergio Cantoreggi, Helsinn Group Chief Scientific Officer, said: “At Helsinn we are delighted to be able to provide a grant to ESMO to work with physicians and further advance supportive and palliative care through this Preceptorship Course. This event will help foster relationships between senior, experienced physicians, and those at the start of their careers, meaning that patients will receive the best possible supportive care to help them live with cancer on a day to day basis.”

Dr Florian Strasser MD, Chair of the Preceptorship Course on Supportive and Palliative Care, commented: “I am delighted this event dedicated to both supportive and palliative care has been organized, and I thank those at Helsinn for their generous and fully unrestricted support in helping us establish this. Supportive and palliative care is an area of oncology that does not receive enough merit increasing attention in modern, personalized oncology and this event will help to address this problem.”

-Ends-

About the Helsinn Group

Helsinn is a privately owned pharmaceutical group with an extensive portfolio of marketed cancer care products and a broad development pipeline. Since 1976, Helsinn has been improving the everyday lives of patients, guided by core family values of respect, integrity and quality. The Group works across pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and nutritional supplements and has expertise in research, development, manufacture and the commercialization of therapeutic and supportive care products for cancer, pain and inflammation and gastroenterology. In 2016, Helsinn created the Helsinn Investment Fund to support early-stage investment opportunities in areas of unmet patient need. The company is headquartered in Lugano, Switzerland, with operating subsidiaries in Ireland and the US, a representative office in China as well as a product presence in about 90 countries globally. For more information, please visit www.helsinn.com.

About ESMO

ESMO is the leading professional organisation for medical oncology. With 15,000 members representing oncology professionals from over 130 countries worldwide, ESMO is the society of reference for oncology education and information. We are committed to supporting our members to
develop and advance in a fast-evolving professional environment.

www.esmo.org

Helsinn Group Contact:

Paola Bonvicini

Head of Communication & Press Office

+41 91-985-21-70

info-hhc@helsinn.com