As today marks World Autism Awareness Day, PharmaTimes are proud to announce that this year’s highly respected Charity Challenge will be partnering with ‘Autistica’ – the UK’s leading Autism research charity.

Click here for more information on Autistica.

Here’s what Jon Spiers (CEO of Autistica) had to say about the new partnership with PharmaTimes and what the Communications Team of the Year competition can deliver for Autistica:

“We’re hugely excited to be working with PharmaTimes to gain insights from the industry’s brightest and best to help us achieve our mission of longer, healthier, happier lives for all autistic people. As a small charity with big ambitions, we can’t wait to see the ideas teams will come up with as they battle it out to become Communications Team of the Year.

The UK’s 700,000 autistic people face poor outcomes across many areas of their lives, including health inequalities, educational challenges and high unemployment. By raising awareness of autism, finding new ways for people to find out about the latest research and educating the public about the amazing strengths autism can bring alongside its challenges, we can begin to change things for some of society’s most disadvantaged people.”

With the charity’s representatives as the judging panel, they can benefit directly from the fresh and varied ideas presented. For the teams who enter, their efforts also have the potential to help the charity do more for the people they support, whilst also maintaining the competitive spirit of the team challenges!

The competition partnered with Bowel Cancer UK for last year’s Charity Challenge and proved to be a great success. Head of Marketing and Communications for the charity, Leanne Thorndyke, praised the challenge on its real-world benefits, saying:

"We are so grateful to all of the agencies who entered and put real time, effort and enthusiasm into their pitches. There were some great ideas and the day proved really valuable, giving us lots of food for thought to help raise the profile of the charity and awareness of bowel cancer"

The teams from 2018 showed phenomenal support for Bowel Cancer UK and this year promises to deliver just as much drive and innovation for Autistica.

Spaces for this category will fill up fast so be sure to enter sooner rather than later to be a part of this great cause.