Abstract
Despite significant advances in research, breast cancer is still the most common form of cancer, with 50,000 cases diagnosed and 12,000 dying of the disease each year in the UK. In October 2013, Breast Cancer Campaign published a Gap Analysis of breast cancer research that provides us with what we need to know about and what we now need to do to overcome - prevent, cure and outlive - breast cancer. In addition to highlighting the gaps in our understanding of breast cancer, the paper identifies five strategic solutions, which require a collaborative approach amongst researchers in academia and industry, funders, donors, policy-makers and parliamentarians, healthcare professionals and patients to achieve significant progress. Breast Cancer Campaign is calling for funding organizations to reverse the decline in resources targeted towards breast cancer research, an improved and collaborative infrastructure to support breast cancer research, multidisciplinary collaboration and improved clinical trial design. We hope that breast cancer can be overcome by 2050, but this can only be achieved through collaboration with others. The actions that will make a difference have been identified and we must act now.