Journal of IiMER Volume 10 Issue 1 June 2016 ahead and not just further delaying tactics to waste more years” By 2014 we could say that the charity’s work had made an impact. After a year of attempting to gain interest in setting up a clinical trial of the drug rituximab, following promising results from the Norwegian Fluge et al. study, the charity initiated a project for the trial and related B cell research in association with University College London. We began a fundraising campaign with the help of the Let’s Do It For ME team of volunteers. An initial target amount of £350 000 was set and we thus started a crowdfunding project into ME which had not been tried before in the UK. This was a daunting task but not one the charity thought impossible to achieve – and IiME's supporters rose to the challenge with positive campaigns which raised funds and awareness for this disease. The supporters of the charity have been a credit to the community of ME patients and carers and have demonstrated the resilience of this population of sick people. We were privileged and grateful to the Hendrie Foundation who agreed to pledge funding toward the rituximab trial. This allowed patients and carers renewed hope in tackling this disease and is now an international project – both in the crowdfunding aspect and in the research itself. Invest in ME (Charity Nr. 1114035) www.investinme.org Page 17 of 77
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