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Explore our cutting edge research, world-class patient care, career opportunities and more.
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Revolutionary approach of Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines transforms care worldwide
St. Jude was founded more than 60 years ago on a radical idea: A child’s chance of surviving a catastrophic disease should not depend on their family’s ability to pay or where they live.
Over time, that belief reshaped the field of pediatric oncology. Survival for childhood cancer in highly resourced countries, such as the United States, rose from less than 20% in the 1960s to more than 80% today. Scientific discovery, collaborative research, and advances in supportive care drove this remarkable progress. Yet, the same upward trajectory in survival has not been achieved globally. Each year, an estimated 400,000 children develop cancer, and more than 80% of them live in resource-limited countries. In many of those settings, survival remains below 30%. Central to this is a persistent and systemic problem: inconsistent access to quality-assured childhood cancer medicines.
The Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines is designed to address this issue directly.
From global commitment to coordinated action
The Global Platform emerged from the recognition that scientific advances alone cannot close global survival gaps; implementation of efficient and resilient systems for |care delivery is essential — and this requires international cooperation. In 2018, St. Jude launched St. Jude Global to strengthen pediatric cancer care worldwide through education and workforce development, expanding treatment capacity, and coordinating research. That effort deepened through a collaboration with World Health Organization (WHO), when St. Jude became the first and only WHO Collaborating Centre for Childhood Cancer. This collaboration sparked the creation of the Global Initiative for Childhood Cancer, which aims to boost cure rates for six common, highly treatable childhood cancers through coordinated international, national, and local efforts.
Access to medicines quickly surfaced as a foundational barrier to quality childhood cancer care on a global scale. Worldwide, essential cancer drugs are frequently unavailable, unaffordable, or of uncertain quality. Supply chains are fragmented. Forecasting demand is difficult. Regulatory pathways are complex. Families are often forced to absorb costs themselves, leading to treatment delays or abandonment.
The Global Platform was designed as an end-to-end system that addresses availability, affordability, quality, accessibility, and sustainability of the pediatric cancer medicines supply chain through global collaboration.
“This is not just about delivering medicines,” said Carlos Rodriguez- Galindo, MD, St. Jude executive vice president, Department of Global Pediatric Medicine chair, and St. Jude Global director. “We are testing whether this model can create market stability, strengthen health systems, and unify how childhood cancer is treated. The goal is a comprehensive approach that can secure essential and innovative therapies for children, wherever they live.”
We are testing whether this model can create market stability, strengthen health systems, and unify how childhood cancer is treated. The goal is a comprehensive approach that can secure essential and innovative therapies for children, wherever they live.
Department of Global Pediatric Medicine
A first-of-its-kind model
Driven by a partnership between St. Jude and WHO, the Global Platform represents an ambitious and innovative way of working in global health. Rather than relying on short-term donations or parallel supply systems, the platform brings together governments, international agencies, industry partners, and nongovernmental organizations to co-design a sustainable solution.
At its core, the platform provides participating countries with an uninterrupted supply of quality-assured childhood cancer medicines at no cost during the initial phases. St. Jude committed $200 million to support procurement, distribution, and technical assistance. WHO provides normative guidance and convening power, while partners such as the UNICEF Supply Division and Pan American Health Organization Strategic Fund contribute procurement and supply-chain expertise.
Beyond medicine delivery, the platform supports countries across six technical areas, including governance, forecasting and quantification, clinical standards, monitoring and reporting, supply management, and regulatory pathways. Each country enters a sustained partnership, beginning with readiness assessments and capacity building, and progressing toward long-term, country-led supply. This pipeline addresses the complete path of medicines from quality manufacturing through delivery to hospitals.
Early deliveries, real-world impact
That model has moved from design to delivery. The first medicines reached countries in the pilot phase of the project in 2025. This first wave supports treatment for nearly 5,000 children across at least 30 hospitals. For participating countries, the pilot phase is as much about learning as it is about supply. National health authorities and clinical teams are co-developing implementation plans tailored to their systems, using early experience to refine forecasting, storage, distribution, and reporting processes. A second wave of countries joined the program in 2026.
“A child’s chances of surviving cancer are largely determined by where they are born, making this one of the starkest disparities in global health care,” said James R. Downing, MD, president and CEO of St. Jude. “St. Jude was founded on Danny Thomas’s dream that no child should die in the dawn of life. By developing this platform, we believe that dream can one day be achieved for children with cancer, regardless of where they live.”
The platform’s long-term vision is one of sustainability. Quarterly reporting allows countries and partners to adapt to changing needs, while lessons from the pilot phase inform improvements in governance, policy, and operational tools. Over time, countries build the capacity to manage childhood cancer medicines independently, strengthening their broader health systems in the process.
The impact is already visible. Pilot countries are improving coordination among hospitals, ministries of health, and procurement agencies. In these countries, standardized treatment protocols are unifying care. Training and technical assistance are also supporting clinicians and pharmacists as new therapies are introduced.
At the same time, the platform is reshaping a fragmented global market for pediatric cancer medicines — aggregating demand, encouraging reliable production, and reducing the prevalence of substandard or falsified products.
Scaling toward a global future
After the initial pilot phase, an additional six countries entered the onboarding process. “We are thinking not only about today’s needs, but about the future of childhood cancer care worldwide,” Rodriguez-Galindo said. “If we can demonstrate that this approach works, it can become a blueprint for addressing other complex global health challenges.”
The Global Platform reflects a shift from isolated interventions to a network of shared responsibility. It aligns science, policy, supply chains, and clinical care around a single goal: ensuring that no child is denied a chance at survival because of geography or circumstance.
For St. Jude, the Global Platform represents both continuity and evolution: an extension of the institution’s founding promise into a global context. For thousands of children already receiving medicines — with many more to come — it represents something even more fundamental: access, security, and hope.