The Cancer United campaign is billed as a pan-European one and has an executive board comprising a mix of oncology specialists and some patients groups' representatives. The board also includes a senior Roche employee.
It ran into controversy last week because of complaints that some data it was using was faulty, but also because of the involvement of pharmaceutical company Roche, the world's largest maker of drugs used to treat cancer. These include Herceptin for breast cancer and Avastin for bowel cancer.
Dr Ian Gibson, a British Labour MP and chairman of an all-party parliamentary group on cancer, was invited to be filmed for the campaign's launch. A number of celebrities have also lent their support to the campaign.
He recorded an interview in support of Cancer United, but pulled out at the weekend because he apparently did not know that the funder was Roche, until it was revealed by the Guardian newspaper late last week. He had also thought that he would be able to use the campaign to promote work on leukaemia research, but that "this appears not to be the case".
Cancer United chairman Prof John Smyth defended Roche's involvement. He told The Irish Times that the company had donated an "educational grant". He declined to say how much this was, but said undoubtedly the campaign would need more funds going forward, and this would be sought from a variety of sources.
"We [the executive board] are not being paid by Roche," he said. "One company will not influence [this campaign] . . . it has nothing to do with marketing medicine for one company." He said that at all stages those involved had been completely open on the sources of income the campaign had received.
Prof Smyth, who is editor in chief of the European Journal of Cancer, is described as having 28 years' research expertise which "focuses on experimental therapeutics, from drug design through all phases of pre-clinical evaluation to clinical trials".
The Guardian said that Lynne Faulds Wood, chairwoman of the European Cancer Patients Coalition, had been listed as a member of the campaign's executive board without her agreement and had asked to be removed. "We have reservations about the transparency of the Cancer United initiative which appears to have only one funder," she said.
Executive board member Tom Hudson, who is chairman of Europa Uoma, the European Prostate Coalition, said the grant from Roche involved paying travel expenses. Patients' groups would not have become involved in the campaign if they felt there was any ties to Roche, he said.
Mr Hudson was chief executive of the Irish Cancer Society for 12 years.
Barry O'Keeffe