Vicki Durston, Director of Policy and Advocacy at Breast Cancer Network Australia (BCNA), Member of the GBCI Technical Working Group at WHO, shared on LinkedIn:
“When the landscape is changing, partnership deepens our understanding.
Over recent months in Australia, as we have navigated increasingly complex conversations about access to cancer medicines, innovation in cancer treatment, the use of genomics, precision medicine and AI – China has come up more than once.
So arriving in Hong Kong for the UICC World Cancer Congress presented an opportunity we were determined not to waste.
Before the Congress began, my colleague and I had the privilege of spending time with some extraordinary leaders across Hong Kong and Shenzhen – people with deep knowledge of the culture, health systems, science and the realities of cancer care across both Hong Kong and mainland China.
We wanted to listen. And we had a lot of questions.
- What is changing in the medicines landscape?
- Where are clinical trials heading?
- How is innovation translating into access?
- What role will China increasingly play in the global cancer ecosystem?
- What does access look like ?
- And what are advocates and women affected by breast cancer experiencing as all of this evolves?
Our time with the Global Chinese Breast Cancer Organizations Alliance brought the advocacy and community perspective – and an opportunity to share the challenges we are facing in Australia, while understanding the challenges they are navigating.
Then we crossed the border into Shenzhen and were generously welcomed into BGI, experiencing another dimension entirely: the extraordinary scale and pace of genomics, science, technology and data.
Advocacy. Science. Innovation. Access.
Different perspectives on a cancer landscape that is moving incredibly quickly. Providing so many insights.
Not looking for one answer, but being able to ask the same questions from different vantage points – and to share openly what Australia is experiencing while learning from people deeply connected to what is happening across Hong Kong and China.
‘As cancer science becomes increasingly global, so too are the challenges of ensuring innovation actually reaches people affected by disease.’
I am incredibly grateful to the leaders who opened their doors, shared their perspectives so generously and allowed us to have frank and thoughtful conversations before the World Cancer Congress even began.
‘We may work in different countries and different health systems, but many of the questions we are grappling with are shared.’
And there is enormous strength in understanding them together.”
You can also read: Highlights from World Cancer Congress 2026
