A well known wealth management group is putting up $25,000 in an effort to inspire others to give to the London Health Sciences Centre’s (LHSC) pancreatic cancer centre.

CIBC Private Wealth has announced it will match any donation made to the Baker Centre for Pancreatic Cancer, up to a total of $25,000, until the end of the month. The fundraising campaign coincides with Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month which raises awareness about the disease each November.

“The goal is to help give back more time to current and future patients devastated by the diagnosis so they can be with the ones they love,” said Jennifer Wagner, associate branch manager at CIBC Private Wealth.

Pancreatic cancer is fast-growing and has one of the lowest survival rates. Diagnosis and treatment of the disease are considered complex. Often, this form of cancer is not detected until it has reached an advanced stage, making treatment more difficult. It has only a 10 per cent five-year survival rate.

The Baker Centre for Pancreatic Cancer opened in July 2019. It is a multidisciplinary clinic with new diagnostic technology that aims to improve access to care, bring more targeted personalized treatments to patients while researching and developing new treatment options. It offers genetic testing for all newly diagnosed patients, a measure that can highlight specific anomalies in tumour DNA that physicians can then target through specialized treatments.

“The team at CIBC Private Wealth is committed to making an impact on the lives of patients living in our community who have pancreatic cancer,” said John MacFarlane, President and CEO of London Health Sciences Foundation, the fundraising arm of the LHSC. “So, I encourage everyone to join CIBC’s mission and donate throughout the month of November to have twice the impact for those patients living with this deadly disease. Every dollar counts.”