2024 GLOBAL SRM RESEARCH REPORT
CASE STUDY: CANCER RESEARCH UK - GEARING UP TO BENEFIT
48
49
Partnering is already “enormous” for them, says Morrison, providing significant leverage in Discovery and Translate and income through corporate partnerships and donors, and there is more to do, especially across the supplier base. Finally, Sustain is about ensuring the long-term sustainability of the organisation - the areas Morrison’s role specifically covers, such as finance, HR, technology and ESG. The day we spoke to Morrison, she was headed off to the official opening of the Cancer Research UK National Biomarker Centre in Manchester. The centre opened in the new Paterson Building, which was rebuilt following a devastating fire in 2017. This centre will help experts detect cancer at an earlier stage when there are usually more treatment options available. It was rebuilt following an agreement reached between the three parties that partner to operate it. Elsewhere, the charity has co-founded a global research initiative with the National Cancer Institute in the US. Together the two organisations are uniting the world’s brightest minds against cancer’s toughest challenges. Through ‘Cancer Grand Challenges’ research teams are provided with up to $25m awards and empowered to rise above traditional boundaries to change outcomes for people with cancer. Awards have already been made to explore solid tumours in children, early-onset cancers, and cancer inequities. Now the challenge is to take how it works successfully with other partners and apply that to its supplier relationships. “For us, it’s the quandary of how to get and build those supplier relationships as a charity. Procurement requires relationships as the top lever, it’s not just about price - we want good prices - but more than that, we want the added value of a strong relationship that leads to mutual benefit.”
More than a century of discoveries Work done over the past 100 or so years of the charity and its forerunners have included strides forward in the fight against cancer. It has, among other things: • Contributed to chemotherapy drugs used to treat 120,000 patients a year on the NHS • In 2001, researchers shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine for discovering the system • Involvement in the latest genetic mapping technologies, which has helped to lead to a new understanding of the immune system’s role • Work on the causes of cancer, including DNA mutations, as well as environmental triggers like tobacco that precisely controls when cells (including cancer cells) divide. • Research on the strong link between high-risk HPV strains and cervical cancer, which led to work to protect against it • Support for vital clinical trials, including for prostate cancer therapies • Work to improve survival rates for children with cancer • Played a key role in the development and improvement of the UK’s national breast screening programme • Pioneering research laid the foundations of modern radiotherapy and the charity continues to campaign for improvements • Helped to uncover the links between hormones and cancer - both in terms of risk and developing treatments Source: https://news.cancerresearchuk. org/2022/02/02/cancer-research-uks-top- research-impacts/
“We know our suppliers are keen to support us over and above the work they do.” After a simple ask; more than 50 representatives from key suppliers within the COO directorate recently took part alongside Morrison in a Race for Life run - the charity’s flagship fundraising event series across the UK. In many cases organisations doubled their team’s fundraising, and one is now looking to sponsor one of the charity’s other events. “The will is there, we just need to find a more formal way to tap into it.” Organisations want to help, and often offer ‘free’ work but it might not be quite what the charity needs. Equally Cancer Research UK may request something pro-bono but it may not be quite what the supplier is willing or able to provide. The challenge, says Morrison, is bridging the gap. She is looking for a solution - be it an individual to head it up or a more structured approach - that means these considerations can be captured and thought-through. “It’s not free to do this work - it requires focus to do with a particular lens. That’s the challenge: There are definitely offerings that we could surface out there, we just need to figure out how to do it effectively.”
Essentially, procurement is set up with the standard ‘go to the market with a requirement for a piece of work’ approach rather than to work with existing or potential suppliers on how to engage with Cancer Research UK so that is of mutual benefit to their own ESG agenda. “The process of matching what you need with what another organisation is prepared to do pro-bono is more complicated than simply buying a service - but that’s the bit that many companies would like to do with us, working out how to do it effectively is the opportunity.” Partnering and compromise The charity has five pillars to its long-term strategy: Discover, Translate, Engage, Partner and Sustain. Discover and Translate focus on further improving the research through better identifying the scientific and clinical discoveries and translating those findings into new prevention measures, tests and treatments that can save and improve lives. Engage focuses on how to better engage with their audiences, supporters and suppliers who fund their work.
Powered by FlippingBook