Upon the diagnosis of his daughter in 2015 with the deadliest pediatric brain cancer DIPG, Philip Manduca, a financier residing in London, UK, was supplied with the standard of care “death sentence” by the medics. He realized that he was on his own in the mission to prolong and even save his daughter’s life. He pioneered experimental treatment schedules, and he argued that dosages and drug concentrations mattered even more than the drug itself. Most of all, he realized from the first prognosis that he had no time to lose by choosing old therapeutic pathways to a constant morbid outcome.
Since then Philip has served as treatment advisor with the DIPG Treatment Advisory Council, and has been instrumental to the development of the new, international treatment program for DIPG and mid-line glioma at Zurich Children’s Hospital in Switzerland, offering personalized treatments and multi-modality developments in the latest research in pediatric neuro-oncology. Because of the controversial nature of experimental research and treatment for children, the program’s development has been somewhat guarded from public view until now.
Philip shares in all candor the courage that it takes to speak truth to power and take the action necessary to facilitate real change, and most importantly, hope for children with brain cancer, the leading cause of death in children with cancer.
