Four years of ECTRIMS

This month, I’ll be heading to Toronto for the joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting 2026 – and, incredibly, this will be my fourth year attending ECTRIMS.

For anyone unfamiliar with it, ECTRIMS is one of the biggest and most important global meetings in the multiple sclerosis calendar. It brings together thousands of researchers, neurologists, healthcare professionals, industry representatives and others working across MS to share the latest research, discuss advances in treatment and care, and ultimately look at how we can improve the lives of people living with MS.

This year feels particularly exciting. For the first time since I’ve been attending, the meeting is being held jointly with ACTRIMS, bringing the European and Americas committees together in Toronto.

But there’s another reason this year feels particularly special for MS Together: we’re proud to be a Patient Community Day partner.

Four years of ECTRIMS

When I first attended ECTRIMS, I remember just how huge it felt.

As someone living with MS, stepping into a conference filled with some of the world’s leading MS researchers and clinicians can feel slightly surreal. There are conversations happening about treatments, progression, symptoms, biomarkers, brain health and the future of MS care – all things that have a very real impact on our lives.

Over the past four years, I’ve seen more and more recognition of the importance of bringing the patient community into those conversations.

For me, that matters enormously.

Research and clinical advances are vital, but behind every abstract, study and statistic is a person actually living with MS. People are navigating diagnosis, treatment decisions, work, relationships, mental health, uncertainty about the future and everything else that comes with having a lifelong condition.

Those experiences need to be represented too.

Why Patient Community Day matters

That’s why we’re so pleased to support Patient Community Day this year.

It creates a space specifically for people affected by MS to hear about and engage with some of the conversations taking place at the wider meeting.

Making MS research accessible shouldn’t be an afterthought. People living with MS deserve opportunities to understand the research that could affect our lives, ask questions, share our perspectives, and be part of the wider conversation about where MS research and care go next.

As an organisation created by and for people living with MS, this is something that sits very naturally with MS Together.

Our community is primarily made up of young adults diagnosed with MS, and we hear every day about the questions, worries and experiences that can sometimes be missing from traditional conversations about healthcare.

Being a Patient Community Day partner gives us another opportunity to help bridge that gap.

What I’m looking forward to in Toronto

There is always an enormous amount happening at ECTRIMS, and this year will be no different.

As CEO of MS Together, having the opportunity to attend meetings like ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS is incredibly valuable. Part of my role is making sure that we understand what is happening across the wider MS landscape – particularly in research, treatment and care – so that we can bring that knowledge back to our community.

Being there means I can hear about emerging research directly from the people leading it, ask questions, understand what developments might mean in practice and then help translate some of those often very scientific conversations into information that feels relevant and accessible to the people we support.

It also helps us think about the future of MS Together. Understanding where MS research and care are heading allows us to consider how our services, resources and advocacy can continue to respond to what people with MS need – both now and in the years ahead.

I’m particularly looking forward to hearing about the latest developments in MS research and treatment, but also the conversations looking beyond medication alone.

I’m interested in what we’re learning about quality of life, mental health, symptom management and the wider realities of living with MS. I’ll also be listening closely to conversations around early intervention and what support looks like for people at the very beginning of their MS journey – something that has become even more important to us following the launch of our newly diagnosed guide, Navigating MS, Together.

I’m also looking forward to seeing how patient involvement continues to evolve.

For me, meaningful involvement isn't simply inviting people with MS into the room. It is making sure our experiences are genuinely heard, valued and able to influence the conversations taking place.

And, of course, one of my favourite parts of attending conferences like this is the opportunity to connect.

ECTRIMS brings together people from across the global MS community who we might normally only speak to through a screen. It gives us the chance to strengthen existing relationships, make new ones, learn from organisations doing brilliant work elsewhere in the world, and explore what we can bring back to our own community.

Bringing it back to MS Together

Although I’ll be attending in my role as Founder and CEO of MS Together, I’ll also be there as someone who was diagnosed with MS at 21.

Those two perspectives are impossible for me to separate – and I don't think I'd want to.

Everything we do at MS Together is rooted in lived experience and in listening to our community. So while I’m in Toronto, I’ll be thinking about what the research and conversations I’m hearing actually mean for the young people with MS we support.

What should our community know about?
What could change their experience of living with MS?
Where are the gaps?
And where do organisations like MS Together need to keep pushing for change?

I’m incredibly proud that MS Together will be represented at this year’s joint ACTRIMS-ECTRIMS Meeting and that we’ll be supporting Patient Community Day.

Four years on from my first ECTRIMS, I’m just as excited to walk through those doors – but perhaps with an even stronger sense of why it matters that organisations like ours, and the people we represent, are there.

See you in Toronto!

Amy Thompson
Founder & CEO, MS Together

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