The European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO), one of the top three global oncology societies, opened its annual Asian Congress (ESMO Asia 2024) on December 6th. This year’s event is being held at Suntec City, Singapore, and will run for three days until December 8.

With over 50 years of history, ESMO is a global society comprising approximately 40,000 oncology professionals from 176 countries. The ESMO Annual Congress is one of the largest gatherings in oncology, attracting clinicians, researchers, patient advocacy groups, and industry stakeholders worldwide. ESMO Asia, the regional event for Asia, draws particular attention for presenting key Phase 3 clinical trial data alongside subgroup analyses tailored to Asian populations. This year’s congress will feature a total of 1,268 presentations and 709 research posters.

This year’s ESMO Asia exhibition features booths from numerous companies, including AbbVie, Amgen, Astellas, AstraZeneca, BeiGene, Daiichi Sankyo, Eisai, Gilead Sciences, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Merck, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Takeda, and Roche. Each booth highlights the companies’ key drug pipelines as well as presentations being showcased at the event.

On the first day of the event, large crowds gathered at the registration counters. ESMO Asia is known for its grand opening ceremonies each year, and this time, a spectacular performance featured a massive dragon making its way from the exhibition hall to the opening ceremony venue.

ESMO President Andres Cervantes remarked, “The greatest strength of this event lies in sharing our commitment to improving cancer care, which unites us across continents and oceans.”

This year also marked the debut of the ESMO Patient Engagement Summit, a session dedicated to patient advocacy groups in Asia, which received an enthusiastic response. Many members of patient organizations cheered during President Cervantes’ introduction of the session. From Korea, groups such as the Korea Kidney Cancer Association, the Korea Lung Cancer Association, and the Korea Blood Cancer Association were invited to participate in the session.

Each patient advocacy group will begin by introducing themselves, followed by tailored presentations from clinical leaders on the key highlights of ESMO’s September congress in Spain. On the final day of the event, December 8, various presentations will take place, covering topics such as patient engagement experiences in Asia, the role of patients’ voices in shaping public policy in Europe, insights gathered by ESMO from patients, regional patient advocacy and engagement from the perspective of patient advocates, health technology assessment (HTA), and studies on the real-world experiences of cancer patients conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) regional offices.

Key Photos from the Exhibition Hall