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Jan Geissler

Leukemia Patient Advocates Foundation

Jan Geissler works for the European Patients’ Forum in his role as director of the ‘European Patients Academy on Therapeutic Innovation’, a project funded by Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). EUPATI develops educational material and training courses to educate patient representatives and the lay public about all processes involved in medicines development. He is also founder and managing director of Patvocates and acts as independent advisor in the triangle of cancer policy, patient advocacy and social media.

After his University diploma in Business Management in the UK and Germany, Jan held various managerial positions in telecommunications R&D and media industry think tanks before he focused his professional life on patient advocacy in 2008. Being a leukemia survivor who participated in various clinical trials himself, Jan founded the online patient community Leukämie-Online/LeukaNET in 2002, which is one of the most frequented online platforms for leukemia patients on the German speaking Internet today.

In 2003, he co-founded the European Cancer Patient Coalition and became its first full time director 2008. In 2007, Jan also co-founded the CML Advocates Network which is connecting 102 leukemia patient groups from 78 countries on all continents today.

He is a patients’ representative in various advisory boards, e.g. the European Commission Group of Experts on Rare Diseases, the European Commission Expert Group on Cancer Control, the editorial journals of “Journal of European CME”, “Journal of Cancer Policy” and “Journal of Research Involvement and Engagement”, the ESMO Patient Advocacy Working Group, the ECCO Patient Advisory Committee, the Institutional Review Board of EORTC, the scientific advisory board of the International CML Foundation, and the External Advisory Board of the University Clinic of Jena.