A message from Emma France, Global CEO
As 2025 comes to a close, I want to thank you for being part of a global community that refuses to wait.
At the Follicular Lymphoma Foundation, we exist to change the story for everyone living with follicular lymphoma (FL). We refuse to accept FL as the incurable cancer it is today.
This year marked a turning point. Scientific momentum accelerated. Global collaboration deepened. The patient voice grew stronger. And promising research began translating into real-world medical advances.
In my first year as Global CEO, I’ve witnessed how the powerful connections between patients, researchers, clinicians, donors, partners and volunteers create a force for change. Your continued support drives this momentum every day, accelerating research, deepening understanding, expanding treatment options, and bringing us closer to cures for the more than 1.5 million people worldwide living with FL.
This year, our community made it clear that we are done waiting. One piece of feedback captured exactly why this work matters:
I feel like I’ve been waiting so long to meet other people with the same struggle as me. For the first time, I know that ‘incurable but treatable’ is not good enough and that there is a team completely determined to find a cure.”
Shared a member of the FLF community
The highlights below show what happens when a community decides not to accept the status quo and chooses progress instead.
Here are a few highlights you helped make possible in 2025:
1. Advancing research with real clinical impact
Across our scientific programmes, research continued to deliver results, influencing studies and trials and moving precision medicine forward through biomarker discovery and other high-impact work. What matters most is that this progress is helping shape better treatment for people living with FL.
2. Putting patients and community at the centre of the path to a cure
One of the most important things we did this year was listen. Through global patient surveys with more than 1,500 responses from 49 countries, ongoing workshops and webinars with more than 170,000 views, and an in-person gathering in London, we heard directly from people living with FL from over 100 countries throughout the year. Their experiences, concerns, and priorities are shaping our focus and helping ensure progress is built around real lives and real needs.
3. Leading expert-driven progress toward cures
Working closely with scientists and clinicians, we strengthened our expert-informed approach by convening scientific roundtables and investigating research with the greatest potential impact. These globally drawn insights help ensure our decisions remain focused on what can move us toward a cure fastest.
4. Elevating follicular lymphoma on the global stage
By hosting dedicated FL symposiums at world-leading conferences, we placed FL at the heart of the international research agenda. These forums strengthened collaboration, accelerated shared learning, and ensured FL remains a priority within the world’s leading scientific communities.
5. Powered by partnership, generosity, and shared commitment
None of this progress would have been possible without partnership. I’m deeply grateful for the generosity of our community and for the many thoughtful conversations with donors, industry, and partners throughout the year. This shared commitment was reflected so powerfully in the Unlock the Cure gala, which raised more than £800,000 to accelerate research and breakthroughs.
6. Highlighting FL’s broader scientific significance
We strengthened understanding of why FL offers a unique opportunity to study how cancer develops, evades the immune system, and resists treatment. Because FL progresses slowly, insights gained here have the potential to shape future research approaches across many cancers.
Next year will be even more ambitious. We are advancing work across research, collaboration, and emerging technologies, with one clear aim: to accelerate progress for people living with follicular lymphoma.
We will begin 2026 by hosting the first-ever global FL conclave with the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute in Barcelona. This event will bring together leaders in science, medicine, and technology to align on priorities and identify the most promising directions toward curing FL.
We are not imagining a cure. We are taking the next steps to reach it.
A gift today will help drive research forward, strengthen patient involvement, and move us closer to cures that do not yet exist. If you would like to help accelerate the next phase of this work, your support can make a real difference.
As Global CEO, I feel incredibly privileged to serve this community. Every conversation, every question, and every act of support reminds me that progress is never driven by one person or one institution, but by people choosing to stand together and push for something better. I am deeply grateful to everyone who has played a part in moving this work forward.
Thank you for refusing to wait.
Thank you for believing progress is possible.
Thank you for helping to change what the future looks like for people living with follicular lymphoma.
Together, we are creating a future where follicular lymphoma is no longer incurable.
Thank you for your support this year and for helping us drive what comes next.
Emma France
Global CEO
Follicular Lymphoma Foundation
