Bob Wright established The Suzanne Wright Foundation in November 2016, in honor of his wife Suzanne, to drive urgency and action in the fight against pancreatic cancer.
The Suzanne Wright Foundation advocates for HARPA, the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency, to drive innovation in biomedical research.
Despite medical innovation over the last century, millions of Americans with deadly and debilitating conditions have seen no progress….
There are more than 9,000 known diseases, yet there are approved treatments for only 500.
Two out of five Americans have a disease with no cure.
HARPA would leverage federal research assets and private sector tools to develop capabilities for diseases, like pancreatic cancer, that have not benefited from the current system.
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Bob Wright established the Suzanne Wright Foundation in honor of his wife Suzanne, who died from pancreatic cancer in 2016. 91% of patients die from this disease- most within the first year of diagnosis. CodePurple is a Suzanne Wright Foundation initiative to drive urgency and action in the fight against pancreatic cancer. The improvement in survival rates for breast, colon, prostate and other cancers demonstrates how the power of advocacy and focused funding can drive research and save lives. Pancreatic cancer is an emergency that requires an innovative, focused approach. Bob Wright and the Suzanne Wright Foundation have proposed the federal initiative HARPA, a Health Advanced Research Projects Agency, to build life-saving capabilities for diseases that have not benefited from the current system.
READ MORE ABOUT USDecember 12, 2019
For all the innovation and ingenuity in the medical field, this country performs miserably with disease prevention and early detection. For many reasons, this makes no sense.
In the case of autism, the economic argument for early diagnosis and treatment was clear: Early intervention makes a lifetime of difference, with reduced burden on the school system and the Medicaid program. It also leads to better outcomes for individuals. Of course, this is true of many conditions.
Years after the Wrights made that argument for autism support, Suzanne Wright was diagnosed with stage 4 pancreatic cancer. It was shocking to learn there is no reliable detection test and there are no curative treatments for the disease!
Mammograms, PSA tests, and colonoscopies have saved millions of lives, but there is nothing for pancreatic cancer. It has been nearly fifty years since Nixon declared War on Cancer. Shockingly, pancreatic cancer has the same 91% mortality rate it had in 1971. This is the highest mortality rate of all cancers.
45,000 people die every year, like clockwork, and there is no urgency at the federal research level to address this. Nobody is held accountable for this lack of progress. Bob Wright soon learned why. There is no army to demand a new approach. #RoadToHARPA
June 25, 2018
A segment from “The Patients Are Waiting: How HARPA Will Change Lives Now”
December 10, 2019
For all the work being done at the grassroots level, the Wrights knew they needed a campaign to drive awareness of autism. Despite skyrocketing prevalence numbers, there was little understanding of the condition and many barriers to progress.
Suzanne took this on as her own challenge. She dedicated herself to driving a global awareness effort to educate the world about the need for acceptance and action. In 2007, with Qatar as a lead sponsor, Suzanne secured the support of the entire United Nations to establish April 2nd as World Autism Awareness Day. Remarkably, she got this done in less than six months – a record at the UN.
Suzanne’s energy and vision were the foundation for Light It Up Blue, a global marketing campaign that marks every April 2nd by getting buildings and landmarks around the world to turn their lights blue for autism.
The Light It Up Blue campaign provided the hope that with enough support behind you, anything can be done. Only a few years later, this would prove to be monumentally harder when Suzanne faced her deadly diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. #RoadToHARPA
The Suzanne Wright Foundation is dedicated to driving urgency and action in the fight against pancreatic cancer—the most deadly of all major cancers. 91% of patients die. This is an emergency. This is #CodePurple.
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Checks should be made payable to “The Suzanne Wright Foundation” and mailed to:
THE SUZANNE WRIGHT FOUNDATION
610 FIFTH AVENUE, SUITE 605
NEW YORK, NY 10020
