Former UK PM David Cameron visits Cleveland for major rare disease conference

Added: 2026-05-26

[00:00:00]We now have a story that is a cool one for you. This is coming from our friend Monica Robins. She got to sit down one-on-one with former British Prime Minister David Cameron.

[00:00:09]>> He has some ties to Northeast Ohio. In fact, he's here to deliver the keynote address at Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals.

[00:00:17]Here's a bit of their conversation.

[00:00:19]This is a personal mission for Lord David Cameron because in 2009, he lost his 6-year-old son Ivan to a rare neurological disease. So, he gave the keynote speech here at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History and now they're having dinner at Severance Hall.

[00:00:37]But, this is a major medical research conference focused on developing treatments for diseases that still have no cure. Cameron chairs the advisory council for the Oxford Harrington Rare Disease Center. It's a partnership between University Hospitals and the University of Oxford. The Harrington Discovery Institute's annual scientific symposium brings physicians, scientists, pharma experts, and innovators from the US, UK, and Canada together to accelerate drug development for cancer, Alzheimer's, and rare diseases. And Cameron is committed to the goal of major advancements in the next 10 years.

[00:01:12]40 drugs for 40 rare diseases in the next decade. And all politicians exaggerate, but I would say we're going to do much better than that. I mean, if we've only been going for a few years, we've already got, as I say, 59 medicines sort of, you know, being being built by our scientists. We not only appoint another 12 scholars, not just for America or Britain, they can apply to Oxford Harrington. We mix philanthropy, I giving them money to get going, to get that idea into the lab, and then backing with venture so you can turn it into a a business and turn it into a into a cure.

[00:01:48]>> Philanthropy is a big driver of how these projects get funding. And you may recall that the Haslams, the Browns owners, they donated $10 million to the Oxford Harrington Rare Disease Center in the hope that they'll find a treatment or a cure for D. Haslam's chronic lymphocytic leukemia. The UK is facing national budget deficits, which is leading to grant freezes. And here in the US, federal funding cuts disrupted health and medical research with some grants ending based on subject matter rather than scientific review. And that's a trend researchers are saying is delaying work on diseases that still have no cure.

[00:02:27]In Cleveland, Monica Robins, 3 News.