KickCancer finances clinical trials so that innovative drugs are tested in children in a safe and ethical environment and fundamental or translational research in order to improve our understanding of the origin and functioning of paediatric cancers, which will allow, in the long run, the development of new drugs for paediatric cancers.

Because - fortunately - each paediatric cancer is a very rare disease, KickCancer chooses to support only the best research projects with a European scope, which is the only way to guarantee a satisfactory recruitment of patients.

In order to select the best projects, we have set up a watertight selection process together with other European organisations, Imagine for Margo (France), the Kriibskrank Kanner Fondatioun (Luxembourg), CRIS Cancer Foundation (Spain), KiKa (the Netherlands): the FIGHT KIDS CANCER call for European projects.

Since 2019, KickCancer has financed part of the operating costs of the Belgian Society for Pediatric Hemato-Oncology (BSPHO), which coordinates and initiates the participation of the Belgian centers in international academic clinical trials.

At the end of 2021, KickCancer also signed a collaboration agreement with the BSPHO under which the foundation commits to select and finance, twice a year, (mainly clinical) research projects.

At the European level, KickCancer is an active member of the CCI-Europe (Children Cancer International - Europe) which assembles 63 member associations from 37 European countries. CCI-E advocates for changes in the European legislations that will foster better treatments for children with cancer.

We also actively participate in the framing of EU4Health Programme in order to make sure paediatric cancers are a priority by making recommendation on the Horizon Europe Programme (with the ‘Cancer Mission’) and the ‘Europe’s Beating Cancer Plan’. Both of these action plans are great opportunities to catalyse innovation and research on paediatric cancers.

KickCancer also participates in the Accelerate platform, an open forum for all the players in the field of paediatric cancers (pharmaceutical companies, academic paediatric oncologists and haematologists, parents organisations, and regulators) with the joint purpose of speeding up the access to innovative drugs.

At the Belgian level, KickCancer is advocating amending certain regulations, with the support of the Belgian Society of Paediatric Haematology and Oncology (BSPHO), in order to simplify the handling of the treatment of children in Belgium, with for instance the automatic reimbursement of certain drugs or the administrative simplification of the reimbursement process of hospitalisation outside of Belgium.

KickCancer’s Patient Advocacy Committee structurally allows young patients and their parents to make their voices heard with the aim to directly influence the quality and orientation of research projects as well as the care pathway for young cancer patients and their families.

Curing more children with cancer and making sure that long term side effects caused by the current treatments be reduced requires first and foremost that we understand and acknowledge that there is a problem.

This is the reason why KickCancer invests energy so that patients themselves, but also the population at large, understand the specificities of paediatric cancer and the solutions that KickCancer proposes to put in place.

A wide population’s support is the only way to succeed when one wants to finance more research and advocate the set-up of a regulatory and cultural environment that will help foster more research and the development of better treatments against cancer for young patients.

KickCancer developed its first major awareness campaign in September 2020 under the theme of childhood play… So, will you dare to ignore children’s cancer?

KickCancer’s awareness campaign is generously made possible thanks to the players of the National Lottery.