Winter 2024
By Michael Quinn
Photography by Pan-Mass Challenge
For more than four and a half decades, the Pan-Mass Challenge (PMC), a bike-a-thon across Massachusetts and the world’s most successful single athletic fundraising event, has been an integral partner in Dana-Farber’s life-changing work. Even by the PMC’s lofty standards, 2024 was a banner year, as the organization generated a record gift of $75 million and surpassed an extraordinary $1.047 billion in lifetime fundraising since its founding in 1980.
This historic effort was accelerated by the 45th PMC ride on August 3–4, when more than 6,800 riders from 45 states and territories and 10 countries pedaled 16 one- and two-day routes ranging from 25 to 211 miles across Massachusetts. They were supported by over 3,500 volunteers, more than 200 corporate sponsors, and 350,000 individual donations. More than 1,100 riders and volunteers were cancer patients and survivors, considered Living Proof of the PMC’s mission and impact. PMC fundraising was also propelled by PMC Winter Cycle, an annual spin event at Fenway Park in Boston; PMC Unpaved, a gravel ride in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts; and PMC Kids Rides, where children raise funds through mini bike-a-thons in their communities.
The PMC donates 100% of every rider-raised dollar to Dana-Farber. As the Institute’s largest single donor, accounting for 66% of the Jimmy Fund’s annual revenue, the PMC remains the driving force for progress at the Institute that ripples around the globe. And the advances at Dana-Farber enabled by the PMC since its inception have transformed cancer medicine.
For example, immunotherapy, the gold standard for treating many cancers today, arose from innovative basic research discoveries made at the Institute that relied on PMC support. Since then, Dana-Farber researchers unleashed these breakthrough treatments against malignancies like melanoma, for which the Institute’s team led the first trials of immunotherapies and cancer vaccines.
“Together, we’re setting up the road to the next billion and even greater progress.”
Billy Starr, Pan-Mass Challenge
PMC funding also fueled the growth of Dana-Farber’s clinical trials program into one of the nation’s largest, allowing the Institute to play a substantial role in advancing more than half of all cancer therapies approved by the FDA in the last five years. In multiple myeloma, many of the 19 therapies approved in the past two decades were advanced at the Institute with PMC support, with patients now living three to five times longer than could be previously expected.
Additionally, funding from the PMC has helped the Institute more than double in size since 2000, from approximately 1.22 million square feet then to more than 2.83 million square feet in 2024. This new space includes three world-class patient care facilities built in the past five years to bring cancer care into communities closer to where patients live; and dynamic research labs like the Longwood Center, the Institute’s state-of-the art hub of collaborative, leading-edge cancer science.
Along with its physical footprint, Dana-Farber expanded care for historically marginalized populations as the Cancer Care Equity Program doubled in size, enabling the Institute to increase its team of community-facing patient navigators, build relationships with neighborhood clinics, and expand research into the causes of and interventions for health disparities.
In parallel, PMC resources equipped Dana-Farber to recruit and retain renowned physicians, scientists, and nurses from around the globe, with more than 125 physicians named to Boston magazine’s most recent “Top Doctors” list, 34 investigators on the “Highly Cited Researchers” list by the Institute for Scientific Information at Clarivate, and the fifth consecutive Magnet® designation for excellence in nursing and patient care.
Bolder research, better care, optimal facilities, and the best people—these things and more are what $1 billion from the PMC has made possible at Dana-Farber. This tremendous progress helped the number of cancer survivors in the U.S. grow from less than 5 million in 1980 to over 19 million in 2024, and the five-year survival rate increase from 50% to 68%.
For Benjamin Ebert, MD, PhD, Dana-Farber president and CEO, the George P. Canellos, MD, and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine, and 6-year PMC rider, the PMC is much more than a bike ride—it is a lifeline for the Institute’s mission to defy cancer. “The PMC is an experience like none other,” Ebert said. “I am honored to ride each summer with this committed community, which inspires us all at Dana-Farber and empowers everything we do to improve patients’ lives.”
In celebrating a year that was truly “One In a Billion,” Billy Starr—PMC founder and executive director, 45-year PMC rider, and a Dana-Farber Trustee—knows this dedicated community is ready for more. “I am immensely grateful to everyone who has contributed to this $1 billion fundraising achievement,” Starr said. “Together, we’re setting up the road to the next billion and even greater progress.”
