Presentation of the 18th Annual Award for Leadership in Personalized Medicine

The Personalized Medicine Coalition has selected Bonnie J. Addario, a leader in patient advocacy and the co-founder of GO2 for Lung Cancer, as the winner of this year’s Award for Leadership in Personalized Medicine.

In an observation that became an early mantra for personalized medicine more than two centuries ago, Hippocrates famously noted that “it is far more important to know what person the disease has than what disease the person has.” Such was obviously the case with Bonnie.

After being diagnosed with lung cancer in 2004, Bonnie left her position as the President of South San Francisco-based Olympian Oil Company to create the Bonnie J. Addario Lung Cancer Foundation, which was renamed GO2 for Lung Cancer following its merger with the Lung Cancer Alliance in 2019.

Appalled by stagnant survival rates for the leading cause of cancer death in the United States, Bonnie applied her indefatigable spirit during the next two decades to lobby leaders across the arenas of science, business, and policy for greater attention to the disease. Her tireless advocacy, coupled with scientific developments in personalized medicine and the efforts of pioneering leaders in the business, regulatory, and patient communities, helped drive countless new diagnostic tests and more than 40 new lung cancer therapies to the market between 2006 and 2022.

In his letter nominating Bonnie for this award, Section 32 Managing Partner Michael Pellini summarizes her impact:

“Prior to the foundation’s origin, lung cancer research was underfunded and the five-year survival rate remained stuck at 15 percent,” Pellini wrote. “By bringing attention to the disease, Bonnie helped change the status quo, as new targeted therapies offer hope to patients that they did not have before.”