MUSCLE MATTERS: THE LIFE TAKES MUSCLE VISION

A message of strength from Rebecca McLeod, Chief Brand Officer and U.S. General Manager, Scholar Rock

First, I want to personally thank you for visiting lifetakesmuscle.com. For us, Life Takes Muscle is both an ode and a pledge to the SMA community. It’s a celebration of the profound resilience of children and adults living with SMA and their caregivers, and the triumph of the community’s collective spirit. It highlights the critical role that muscle plays in people finding their independence while living with SMA. It’s also a reminder that life with SMA demands courage and inner strength. As you look around the site, you’ll see that reflected in real photos of real people we know.

Why muscle, and why this moment?

In spending time with this amazing community, one theme comes through clearly: independence matters, and it looks different for every person. For one, it might be a child having enough strength to feed themselves. For another, it might be having the motor function to more easily control the joystick on their wheelchair. Unique goals, with one shared truth: muscle is at the core of everything we do.

What started a few years ago with advanced, life-changing medications in SMA has become a growing movement led by people passionately advocating for themselves and the community. There is immense gratitude for the progress that has been made, but also a desire for more. Those two things can live side by side. As more voices join the fold, we look forward to doctors being able to do even more by addressing SMA from multiple angles. We believe in a future that can deliver greater hope for patients to lead the lives they want to live.

What does “more” look like in real life?

When I consider what it means to be part of Scholar Rock and the SMA community, I think of the individual stories that have shaped who we are as a team. Working directly with families, caregivers, and advocacy groups for years keeps us grounded in the urgency of what’s at stake and what we need to accomplish.

I think of a young student who is tenaciously committed to completing her law degree. In addition to the rigors of the course load, she faces the physical rigors of typing her assignments. Something that her peers may take for granted, she takes on as just another obstacle that she will not let stand in her way.  

I think of a non-ambulatory girl whose quality of life could be vastly improved if she had the strength to push her own wheelchair over a small bump between her room and the kitchen. It reminds us that so much of what children and adults living with SMA wish for cannot really be considered too much.

I think of a boy energetically playing baseball in his yard, something that would have been completely unattainable less than a decade ago, before the medical advances of today. He dreams of all the ways he’d like to continue to up his game as he grows.

These are just a few of the stories that have stuck with me as we think of the future of muscle in SMA. There are many, many more. They show us that to everyone living with SMA, the idea of getting “more” out of care may mean something different, but that they all have a need, and a hope, for continued advancements in science. Their independence, in whatever personal way they define it, depends on it. Life takes muscle, after all.

At Scholar Rock, we have a saying: “We show up for patients each and every day.” I hold myself and my team accountable to that, because we know from everything we’ve seen in getting to know you that you’ll hold us accountable to that, too. 

We’re glad you’re here.