The WIN Consortium in Personalized Cancer Medicine Welcomes the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association as Its First Health Plan Member

VILLEJUIF, France - Tuesday, June 18th 2013 [BUSINESS WIRE/ ME NewsWire]

-- The Worldwide Innovative Networking (WIN) Consortium, a leader in personalized cancer medicine, today proudly announced that the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), an association of thirty-eight independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies, has become a member of the consortium. Founded on the recognition that greater success can be achieved through collaboration than any organization can achieve alone, the WIN Consortium is a global network of leading academic, industry, insurance and patient advocacy organizations working to make personalized cancer care a reality for patients worldwide.

“The WIN consortium and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association share the mission of providing greater value to patients in need of cancer care and treatment,” said Dr. John Mendelsohn, Chairman of the WIN Consortium and the Director of the Khalifa Institute for Personalized Cancer Therapy at MD Anderson Cancer Center. “BCBSA will be a strong asset in advancing our global initiative to improve the outcomes and quality of life for cancer patients.”

“We look forward to collaborating with the WIN Consortium in an effort to drive evidence-based medicine and quality improvement in the area of cancer care,” said BCBSA Chief Medical Officer, Trent Haywood, M.D., J.D. “Cooperatives like these are integral to fostering productive dialogue and the sharing of knowledge and best practices that can produce meaningful, life changing results for patients and their families. We are optimistic about what we will learn from this venture and will continue to seek opportunities that aim to improve healthcare quality and value for our customers.”

About the WIN Consortium                            

Initiated in 2010 by the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center (USA) and the Institut Gustave Roussy (France), the WIN Consortium is a global network of 29 leading organizations from the academic, pharmaceutical, biotechnology, healthcare IT, health plan, and patient advocacy sectors working to accelerate the pace and reduce the cost of translating novel cancer treatments to the bedside by developing and applying, through worldwide clinical trials and research projects, the most promising advances in genomic-based cancer research. WIN is a non-governmental, not-for-profit organization headquartered in Paris.

About Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association is a national federation of 38 independent, community-based and locally-operated Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies that collectively provide healthcare coverage for nearly 100 million members – one-in-three Americans.

For further information, please visit www.winconsortium.org.

Contacts

WIN Consortium

Catherine Bresson, +33(0) 142 114 020

Director Operations

Catherine.bresson@winconsortium.org