Amanda Pullinger, Chief Executive Officer at Debbie’s Dream Foundation: Curing Stomach Cancer, shared on LinkedIn:
“Having just landed in Seoul, Korea for our International Symposium this week, I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my first ESMO – European Society for Medical Oncology conference in Madrid.
ESMO 2026 did not disappoint. And for stomach/GI cancer patients and families – there is some really promising news.
Four themes emerged from ESMO for our patient community:
- Early detection tools are being developed that will enable physicians to give patients more robust and personalized diagnoses
- New treatment options for GI cancer patients are in the pipeline, and a number of these are driven by Biomarker discoveries – notably Claudin18.2. In time, this will transform individual care AND change survival rates for GI cancer patients
- Basic biology in the lab is key to these new discoveries that will lead (in time) to more personalized approaches in the GI cancer space.
- Cancer vaccine research is developing very quickly – notably in the melanoma field, but this creates promising opportunities for other tumor types
During the Opening Session, ESMO President Fabrice Andre outlined the ESMO Roadmap 2030, a plan to drive global progress and connectivity in oncology.
Was great to see Yelena Janjigian on the stage as ESMO 2026 Scientific Committee Co-Chair. Four Awards were presented including an award to Rebecca Fitzgerald of University of Cambridge who presented on Early Detection meets oncology in the gastric and GE cancer space, including an interesting trial involving capsule sponge assays for early detection.
Over the next several days, we were treated to a number of sessions that included updates on GI cancer research and treatment opportunities. It was great to see Elizabeth Smyth and Kai-Keen Shiu moderate sessions, and to watch Sara Lonardi, Raghav Sundar and Hanneke van Laarhoven present on stage.
But the highlight was the Presidential II session on Sunday where Yelena Janjigian introduced Rui-Hua Xu to present CLARITY-Gastric01, a global study demonstrating significant benefits through Sone-Ve for advanced or metastatic CLDN18.2 positive GI cancer patients.
It felt like the medical equivalent to the BAFTAs! Presidential sessions require showing up early for a front row seat! And I was fortunate enough to sit with the AstraZeneca crowd.
Thanks to Jenny Kite, Astellas Pharma for coffee, conversation and a pop-up interview of me that will feature in Gastric cancer awareness month; Nancy Ghattas, for a coffee and a conversation about the exciting work upcoming as Astra Zeneca goes into their 10th year of GI cancer focus and Wyatt Potter, from Henlius.
To Merck for their patient advocacy evening event, and to Lisa Giuroiu for Amgen patient advocacy breakfast. And to ESMO for providing us with a Patient Advocacy space to meet and relax.
Finally, there was some fun: thanks to OncoDaily and Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center for invitations to their after hours events.”
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