Building Stronger Partnerships
Friday, October 12, 2007

NFA President Speaks at Wyeth's 5th Annual Association Summit

ANAHEIM, Calif.---Lynne Matallana, president and founder of the National Fibromyalgia Association, located in Anaheim, Calif., was one of the featured speakers at Wyeth’s 5th Annual Association Summit, held Sept.25-26 in Malvern, Penn.

Attendees were primarily professionals dedicated to improving the health and quality of life for patients. In addition to learning about new developments and the future direction of Wyeth, attendees were given the opportunity to collaborate and gain insights on building stronger partnerships.

“It was amazing to have so many people with similar interests all in one place,” says Matallana. “I believe very strongly in collaborating and not recreating the wheel. Though this program, we were able to share and exchange information and discuss opportunities for partnering.”

Matallana’s presentation was part of the new “Best Practices” session, which was designed to provide useful information on a variety of approaches used to address important patient issues. Matallana shared the Leaders Against Pain (LAP) model, an NFA scholarship program, customized for support group leaders and advocates focusing on media, advocacy and leadership training. Since 2005, the NFA has trained 140 support group leaders and patient advocates through the LAP program from countries around the world, including Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, Colombia, England, France, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Netherlands, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States. As a result of the success of the LAP program, the NFA has developed the International Leaders Against Pain Coalition. The ILAPC is comprised of support group leaders and patient advocates that have completed NFA’s Leaders Against Pain training and have expressed a desire to collaborate on an ongoing basis on behalf of the FM community worldwide.

“For decades people with fibromyalgia have continued to be misunderstood and underserved throughout the world,” says Matallana. “Our Leaders Against Pain Coalition works to improve the quality of life for people with fibromyalgia globally.”

ABOUT THE NATIONAL FIBROMYALGIA ASSOCIATION
The National Fibromyalgia Association is a 501(c) 3 nonprofit organization whose mission is to develop and execute programs dedicated to improving the quality of life for people with fibromyalgia by increasing the awareness of the public, media, government and medical communities. The NFA publishes Fibromyalgia AWARE magazine three times a year and hosts an award-winning website www.FMaware.org.