The Only Metric That Matters
Survival isn’t a goal. It’s the standard.
March 31, 2026
Michelle Capobianco, CEO
[A note from PCNA]
[We are grateful to be sharing the lived experience of Connor and Jen who have documented their personal journey with pancreatic cancer up until Connor’s passing in October 2024, to help other families cope with the challenges of this disease.
This blog article is from a series of content pieces written by these remarkable people.]
To our community of supporters,
I have spent the last ten years working alongside some of the most brilliant minds and tireless advocates in the pancreatic cancer space. I have seen the absolute determination of this community.
But I have also seen a deep frustration.
While survival rates for other cancers have climbed toward 90%, pancreatic cancer has been trapped at a 90% mortality rate for decades. The highest mortality rate of all major cancers.
This is not progress. It is a wake-up call.
In my experience building national and international pancreatic cancer partnerships, one thing is clear: no healthcare system is built for the speed of this disease. Even with historic donor generosity, progress is stalled by institutional silos and research trapped behind borders. To increase survival rates, we must move past traditional funding and radically shift how innovation reaches patients.
Pancreatic Cancer North America (PCNA) is the response to those lessons. We have more than two decades of expertise, unrestrained from geographic borders and traditional nonprofit bureaucracy. A disease this relentless requires a response that is equally unyielding.
For too long, international coordination and collaboration have been polite suggestions rather than requirements. PCNA exists to ensure science transcends politics. We are building the critical networks needed so that a discovery made in a lab in Houston reaches a patient in Calgary or Chicago as swiftly as possible. We are not joining the conversation; we are here to change it.
This approach may not be for everyone. But for those who demand their dollars go towards measurable increases in survival, there is no other way. We have traded hopeful slogans and purple ribbons for urgency and honesty. We are laser-focused on the objectives that will truly move the needle: funding early detection and the precision medicine networks required to turn a death sentence into a survivable disease.
We are here to be the most transparent and effective force in this space. We are a new, unfiltered voice focused solely on the only metric that matters: survival.
Thank you for having the courage to stand with us.
With urgency,
Michelle Capobianco
CEO, Pancreatic Cancer North America
