Dr Simon Vincent
Director of Research, Support and Influencing, Breast Cancer Now
There is no time to waste in unravelling the complexities of secondary breast cancer to stop thousands of people dying from this devastating disease each year.
Each month around 1,000 women and seven men die from incurable secondary (metastatic) breast cancer in the UK, and we’re concerned not enough progress is being made to tackle this disease in research and healthcare.
Breast Cancer Now has a bold vision that by 2050 everyone diagnosed with breast cancer will live and be supported to live well. Paramount to achieving our vision is tackling secondary breast cancer, but many critical unanswered questions remain that must be urgently addressed.
Research bringing hope for the future
Funded by the Breast Cancer Now Catalyst Programme, which accelerates progress through innovation and collaboration, Professor Janet Brown from University of Sheffield is trialling a combination of two drugs – avelumab with radium 223 dichloride – as a potential new treatment for breast cancer that has spread to the bones and other organs.
Meanwhile, Professor Clare Isacke’s team from the Breast Cancer Now Toby Robins Research Centre at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, is working to better understand how cancer and non-cancer cells interact with each other. We hope this will lead to the next generation of treatments or even prevent secondary breast cancer.
Through these projects, and others, we take a ‘bench to bedside’ approach, by supporting discovery research to increase our understanding of the disease, as well as accelerating drug development. In Spring 2022, we will open a call for research proposals and hope to fund more projects that help us tackle this devastating disease.
Each month around 1,000 women and seven men die from incurable secondary (metastatic) breast cancer in the UK.
Our commitment
We are committed to the challenge of tackling secondary breast cancer. Our funded research will help us understand how breast cancer develops and spreads with a mission to find more effective treatments. We also provide specialist services for anyone affected by this incurable disease and campaign to ensure they receive the best possible treatment, care and support.
Join us
More must be done to stop people dying from secondary breast cancer and to help those diagnosed to live well, but we can’t do this alone.
That’s why we’re calling on other organisations to help us accelerate progress in secondary breast cancer through innovation and collaboration so that together, we can make the progress so urgently needed.
Find out more at breastcancernow.org/research
