Ringing and Running with Purpose: Team Conroy at Nasdaq and NYC Marathon

As Exact Sciences’ chairman and CEO, Kevin Conroy spends his days working to help eradicate cancer. 

Usually, that work happens in an office or lab. On Sunday, Nov. 5, Conroy went after cancer in a new location: the streets of five New York boroughs. 

Conroy and his family lined up with 50,000 other runners to take on the 2023 TCS New York City Marathon. Team Conroy ran to raise money and awareness for the American Cancer Society (ACS), which fights cancer through advocacy, research, and patient support. 

Conroy, wife Sheila, and daughters Meghan and Grace joined DetermiNation, ACS’ endurance event program for people who want to push themselves as they raise money.  

The family pledged to run in honor of all who have faced cancer’s challenge: current patients, caregivers, survivors, healthcare professionals, cancer researchers and innovators, and those who have lost their cancer battles. Close in their hearts was Sheila’s beloved brother, Pat Brennan, who died of colon cancer in 2021.  

With a dollar-for-dollar match from cancer screening and diagnostics company Exact Sciences, Team Conroy raised almost $105,000 for ACS. Donations will be used to advance research, to educate and care for those affected by cancer, and to support patients and family members who must travel away from home to receive needed care.  

While in New York, Team Conroy also joined members of ACS’ Cancer Action Network (ACS CAN) to ring the closing bell on Nov. 3 at the Nasdaq Stock Market. ACS CAN leads advocacy initiatives to make cancer issues a priority for national policymakers. Exact Sciences used the closing bell ceremony to emphasize the importance of earlier cancer detection through screening and to celebrate its work with ACS. 

“Cancer is one of the most daunting and formidable challenges of our time. There’s one organization that has done more to improve the lives of people impacted by cancer than anyone else, and it’s the American Cancer Society,” Conroy said at the ceremony. 

“We’re going to keep fighting with you because we know that the work you do is so impactful. It changes lives. We’re proud to be a partner, and we know that we have a chance to end cancer as we know it and to help ensure that everyone has an opportunity to survive this disease.  

“We will do this together.” 

Later, at the marathon, each Team Conroy runner crossed the finish line in under five hours, with all the support they’ve received driving them each step of the way. 

“We’ve been overwhelmed with people’s words of encouragement, as well as their donations,” Conroy says. “It was really a fun thing to do with our girls, and we were glad to be able to use it to bring awareness to ACS.”  

-- 

See Exact Sciences at the Nasdaq closing bell ceremony.