BBC Broadcast Interviews for the Mark Sommerville Foundation and Nevrargenics
This week we secured broadcast interviews across the BBC to highlight the lack of treatments currently available and the important drug development work being done to tackle Motor Neurone Disease (MND).
"I was sent home on 10 October 2023 with a death sentence".
Mark Sommerville is a 43 year old father of four, who was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) in October 2023. He has set up the Mark Sommerville Foundation and is campaigning and fundraising to get innovative, novel new drugs into human trials.
We've been working with the Foundation and client Nevrargenics to raise awareness of MND, fusing Mark's story with the scientific innovation being done at Nevrargenics that is giving hope to MND sufferers but sadly also highlighting the challenges in bringing new drugs to market.
The Foundation is backing Nevrargenics and raising £350,000 to enable the company to start manufacturing the drug for trials this year.
On Tuesday we secured an interview for Mark Sommerville and Prof Andy Whiting, CEO of Nevrargenics on BBC Scotland’s headline Kaye Adams Morning Show. This show reaches over 800,000 listeners across Scotland.
This was followed on Thursday by an interview with Amy Oakden on the Morning Show for BBC Radio Tees, reaching over 135,000 listeners across The Tees Valley, County Durham and parts of North Yorkshire.
“We all need to be looking for disease reversal”
Mark Sommerville gave a powerful account of his diagnosis and his journey in searching for solutions. He is backing a fundraising campaign to get Nevrargenics’ leading drug candidate, Ellorarxine, into human trials this year.
CEO Prof Andy Whiting was on the show discussing his work and how the company's drug offers hope for MND patients. "We all need to be looking for disease reversal...the unmet need is huge. Our lead drug shows phenomenal ability to get into all parts of the CNS". On the difficulties facing the drug development industry in tackling MND, Prof Whiting explained that there is "a feeling of management of decline and that's not what it should be about".
This broadcast coverage is the latest in a series of high profile media appearances for Mark and Prof Whiting, following the support Mark received from the Prime Minister in December.
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