Marc Bains
Co-Founder & Vice-President, HeartLife Foundation
In marking its 100-year anniversary, BMS Canada continues its steadfast commitment to increasing education and awareness of HCM and other cardiac conditions.
Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a common inherited condition in which the heart muscle becomes thickened and stiff. This thickening and stiffness reduce the amount of oxygen-rich blood being pumped out to the rest of the body.
HCM affects about 1 in 500 Canadians.1 Despite its prevalence, many Canadians are unaware of the signs and don’t understand the potential risks, like arrhythmias, heart failure, and stroke.2 Symptoms can vary, but typically include chest pains, shortness of breath, dizziness, fainting spells, heart palpitations, and fatigue. Because the symptoms are often subtle and can overlap with other conditions, patients may dismiss them until they become more severe. Consequently, many HCM patients tend to be undiagnosed.
Marking a century of impact
For over 100 years, Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) Canada has been at the forefront of advancements in diagnosing and treating a broad range of diseases, including cardiac conditions.
Early on, BMS Canada recognized the critical gap that resulted in HCM being underdiagnosed. Today, BMS’s investments in innovative therapies, patient and physician education, and better diagnostic approaches are leading to earlier diagnosis. For the fourth year in a row, BMS Canada is supporting the Canadian Cardiovascular Society HCM Learning Series, a teaching series which aims to enhance HCM education by focusing on key gaps in diagnosis, treatment, as well as long-term management and improve the clinical practices of healthcare professionals caring for HCM patients throughout Canada.
Bridging the awareness and diagnosis gap
Bridging the HCM awareness and diagnosis gap is critical to saving lives and a vital part of BMS Canada’s mission. Through partnerships with patient advocacy groups, such as the HeartLife Foundation, BMS Canada has launched several educational initiatives, including the centralized hub Could It Be HCM, a platform for understanding HCM, signs and symptoms, connecting to support groups, and information on the diagnostic journey. “It’s designed for anyone who might be wondering about HCM or who may have recently received an HCM diagnosis and be looking for answers,” says Marc Bains, Co-Founder and Vice-President of the HeartLife Foundation.
Besides education platforms, BMS Canada works with many partners across industry, academia, and government, to provide direct support for innovation within health care systems. This includes initiatives like the Quality Improvement Initiative (QII) in Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, which funds projects that develop solutions to address specific care gaps in HCM diagnosis, effective management, and improved quality of life for patients. The QII initiative has supported projects in the provinces of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and British Colombia.
Through various partnerships and collaborations, the company also works to disseminate research and data to guide how HCM is recognized and managed in real-world practice. “These collaborations are critical to improving detection and treatment and, ultimately, better outcomes for Canadians,” says Bains.
BMS Canada’s focus on HCM education and innovation initiatives reflects a 100-year legacy of consistently dedicating itself to advancing health care that puts patients firmly at the core.
To learn more about HCM and BMS Canada’s role in raising its profile in Canada, visit coulditbehcm.ca.
