Help Us Raise Funds for Ovarian Cancer Research

As a proud supporter of Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation, Digga is raising funds to help the Hudson Institute to take an important research project to the next phase. 

Read more to find out more about why we’re so passionate about this and how it could help Ovarian Cancer patients finally receive the treatment they deserve.

Digga’s Involvement – Matching donations up to 60K by the EOFY

Digga is a proud supporter of Ovarian Cancer Research. Our team lost a much-loved leader to ovarian cancer in 2018, making this a personal cause for us. Over the last few years, we’ve donated over 160K towards various research programs and in particular towards the development of an early detection test. 

Digga is passionate about improving the outcomes of women with Ovarian Cancer and that’s why we’re matching donations up to 60K until the end of June. The raised funds will go towards the Precision Medicine Project. 

Ovarian Cancer only has a 5-year survival rate, the lowest of any cancers. One of these drugs may give women with Ovarian Cancer more time with their loved ones. 

Let’s help improve 5-year survival rates beyond 50% for the next generation of women through increased access to personalised treatments.

Dig deep & double your impact by donating here today.

DONATE NOW

Ovarian Cancer – In Australia, One Woman Dies Every 8 hours 

Ovarian cancer is the most lethal of the gynaecological cancers, yet research remains relatively underfunded and undervalued, as reflected in investment rates over the last twenty years. This has led to the ovarian cancer five-year survival rate being lower today than that of all cancers combined in 1975 when the modern cancer research era began.

Available Treatment

The treatment of ovarian cancer has not changed significantly in the past 30 years and although ovarian cancer is a spectrum of diseases, treatment generally remains a one size fits all approach. 

Common amongst ovarian cancer patients is the rapid development of drug resistance to most standard chemotherapies (“chemoresistance”). Once this “primary care” has failed, patients are left with few treatment options; and there are no reliable methods to predict if, or when, treatment will fail. Rapidly implementable treatment options are urgently needed to reduce mortality and improve quality of life for patients.

There are several thousand FDA-approved drugs on the market; only a fraction is used for cancer treatment, and only a handful of these for ovarian cancer treatment. However, there are many examples of “repurposed” drugs – where a drug used to treat one cancer type is used experimentally to treat another. If such repurposing options could be identified rapidly, they could provide new opportunities to treat patients who develop resistance to normal standards of care.

OCRF’s Goal

The Ovarian Cancer Research Foundation (OCRF) has been fighting to improve treatment for Ovarian Cancer patients for years. Their goal is to improve 5-year survival rates beyond 50 per cent for the next generation of women through development of and increased access to novel, personalised treatments.

The Precision Medicine Project

“Precision Medicine” is an innovative new treatment approach that involves the individual “profiling” of a patient’s cancer to rapidly understand and predict which, of over 2,000 different approved drugs, will be the most effective treatment for this person’s specific cancer type. The recommendations are provided in real time, allowing immediate implementation by treating clinicians.

Last year, a proof-of-concept clinical trial was held, which provided great promise for the effectiveness of this approach. The trial identified 16 different drugs that show promise in treating ovarian cancer that previously had not been utilised in ovarian cancer treatment. In addition, a detailed analysis identified that 4 drugs were able to re-sensitise ovarian cancer cells to various chemotherapies, giving hope to many women and girls currently impacted by ovarian cancer.

The OCRF now wishes to further explore these benefits with a larger clinical trial but needs help in raising the necessary funds.

How Funding Can Help

The OCRF needs to raise additional funds necessary to continue and expand on the exciting preliminary work undertaken on this project. At present it will cost approximately $9,000 for a patient to be trialed through the precision medicine process (no cost to the patient themselves), but this could reduce to as little as $2,000 as the pool of funds available expands and economies of scale become advantageous. The research foundation are aiming to raise $270,000 to enable this outcome. This allows more women to be tested and more potential treatments to be discovered – an outcome best achieved through more extensive clinical testing.

Ultimately, they are hoping that the extension of this clinical trial will lead to a reduction in cost per patient and affordable and accessible standardised testing for all eligible ovarian cancer patients - moving us closer to significantly shifting survivability rates.