For the past two years, our team has helped cultivate the ACCESS Initiative to ensure equal access and outcomes for underserved patient populations. Created by the American Society for Transplantation and Cellular Therapy (ASTCT^®) and the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP), this campaign was designed to address and reduce barriers to hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and cellular therapy (CT). This year, 2024, marks the third annual workshop and moves us one step closer to breaking down the barriers between patients and the care they need.

Barriers to accessing HCT and CT are correlated with outcome disparities, highlighting the sociodemographic differences between patients. Not only are these barriers present among patients, but they can be found at the donor, physician, and even program or institutional levels. Patients who would otherwise be eligible are thus detained or outright denied life-changing therapies and the opportunity to achieve optimal outcomes.

At The France Foundation (TFF), our role in reducing the barriers to HCT and CT has been to assist ASTCT and NMDP in growing the ACCESS Initiative through our expertise in program coordination, and it has grown considerably since the inaugural workshop in July 2022. Co-Chairs Jeffery Auletta, MD, and Stella M. Davies, MBBS, PhD, MRCP, lead this program and champion the committees focused on awareness, poverty, and racial/ethnic inequity. This year, over 60 ACCESS leaders, key contributors, and industry representatives overcame global technology and travel challenges to attend both virtually and live in Washington, DC, to discuss current projects and future goals.

TFF’s own Debbie Fernandez, the project manager who oversees this program, describes the best part of her role as “being part of an initiative where they’re doing everything they can to even out the playing field. It’s nice to see folks from all different parts of patient care coming together to reduce disparities and ensure everyone who needs treatment gets it.”

Cellular therapy physicians, program administrators, health policy and health equity experts, health service researchers, commercial sponsors, and even federal stakeholders have the opportunity to take part in furthering ACCESS to HCT and CT, while reducing inequalities in the field, by becoming a volunteer on the website here: www.astct.org/Advocacy/ACCESS-Initiative.

For more information on how you can partner with TFF on initiatives like this, feel free to contact us using the form below!