Explore our advocacy

About our advocacy

Breakthrough T1D advocacy is critical to advancing breakthroughs for the entire T1D community. With the support of our grassroots advocates, our work helps advance treatments, influence policy, and improve access to care for those all over the world who need it. 

How we do it

Breakthrough T1D has opportunities for everyone in the T1D community to use their voice in support. 


Together We Can

Together We Can connects our grassroots advocates with Members of Congress to advance our key issues. Advocacy leaders from all over the country meet in the Members’ home states—bringing together local individuals and families—to share their personal connections to T1D articulating the emotional, financial, and physical costs of the condition and encouraging support for our positions.


Children’s Congress

Youth delegates, ages 4 – 17, selected from the across the U.S. and our international affiliates travel to Washington, D.C. to meet with lawmakers to share their personal stories of living with T1D and explain the importance of federal funding for T1D research.

Regulatory frameworks that promote innovation

The next generation of therapies for type 1 diabetes (T1D) will be revolutionary. Breakthrough T1D is working today to ensure those therapies have a clear and reasonable pathway from research to approval anywhere in the world.

Special Diabetes Program

The Special Diabetes Program (SDP) is a critical government program that provides $160 million annually to the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) exclusively for T1D research. The SDP complements Breakthrough T1D’s research funding and efforts. 

To date, the SDP has dedicated nearly $2.8 billion to research. It has delivered real breakthroughs to this community, including artificial pancreas systems, the first therapy to delay T1D onset, and more. 

Renewing the SDP is Breakthrough T1D’s #1 advocacy priority.  

 

Insulin access and innovation

All people with T1D should have affordable access to insulin, which they need to take multiple times a day to survive. No one should suffer or die because they cannot afford insulin.  

Breakthrough T1D is committed to working with everyone to achieve insulin affordability without stifling innovation. 

Government funding

Breakthrough T1D champions federal funding from governments all over the world.  

In the U.S., this means advocating for the highest possible funding levels for the National Institutes of Health and U.S. Food and Drug Administration. These government agencies are key partners to Breakthrough T1D advancing treatments and improving access to care for those all over the world who need it. 

Accelerating access to cures

Thanks to decades of work by Breakthrough T1D, there is an FDA approved therapy that delays T1D onset. This revolutionary therapy is the first, but it will not be the last, to alter the course of T1D. This therapy, and future cure therapies, must be available to those who need and can benefit from them. 

Breakthrough T1D is committed to working with all stakeholders to achieve affordable access to these therapies while ensuring  innovations continue.  

Breakthrough T1D advocates on behalf of the entire T1D community. With the help of our incredible grassroots advocates, we make sure key government agencies and Members of Congress know who we are, what we’re advocating for, and how they can help make T1D a thing of the past.”

Lynn Starr

Breakthrough T1D Chief Global Advocacy Officer