The OSCAR Campaign funds treatments and research by the bone marrow transplant team at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children.

The Campaign is named after Oscar Parry, son of Spinnaker Chairman Phil Parry. Oscar had two different types of leukaemia. His life was saved by experimental treatments. He had two bone marrow transplants, the first ever childhood stem cell transplant in the UK, over 100 blood transfusions, five brain hemorrhages and five years of chemotherapy.

Thanks to the pioneering work of the bone marrow transplant team at GOSH, Oscar is now 24 and the shipping community is saving the lives of other children by supporting more and more new treatments for children with previously incurable diseases.

Latest Developments: The OSCAR Campaign is directing its fundraising towards CAR T cell therapy, which involves genetically engineering the patient's immune cells to fight against their specific leukaemia. This approach has been remarkably successful in patients with otherwise incurable leukaemia.

Sadly, while almost all patients respond initially, around half will relapse and this often because the patient loses circulating CAR T cells for reasons we don’t really understand. These patients currently have little chance of survival.

The clinical team we're supporting need £2.5m to make new treatments a reality. More than £1.5m of funding is already committed. We want to get them across the line and save the lives of children who cannot currently be saved.