The Breast International Group (BIG) was founded in 1996 and became an official international non-profit organisation under Belgian law (aisbl) in 1999.
BIG’s mission is to facilitate breast cancer research internationally in order to reduce the wasteful duplication of effort, advance knowledge in the field, and optimally serve those affected by the disease.
Because BIG is ultimately not a “group” itself, but a “communications network” that enables its members to get together regularly to discuss and collaborate in research projects, BIG can be viewed as a “consortium of consortia”. BIG is a partnership among independent collaborative research entities that have their own data centres and extensive networks of affiliated investigators, hospitals and laboratories. Its 44 members, from Europe, Canada, Latin America, Australia / New Zealand and Asia, coordinate the BIG trials and are tied to approximately 3000 specialised hospitals and research centres around the world. BIG also collaborates with North American collaborative groups, The Breast Cancer Intergroup of North America (TBCI), the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) and The Radiation Therapy Oncology Group (RTOG). With BIG clinical trials accounting for the recruitment of well over 75,000 patients, the association represents an impressive integrating force in the breast cancer research arena.
By drawing on combined resources, BIG enables its members to achieve results in clinical breast cancer research impossible for any individual group in a reasonable period of time. Current projects include programs of trials for young patients, the elderly, targeted adjuvant and neo-adjuvant treatment for the treatment of early breast cancer, advanced disease trials and, more ambitiously, complementary translational research studies in most of the newly designed trials.
BIG groups working together uphold the principle that although the pharmaceutical industry is a vital partner in the research process, scientific independence and objectivity in the way study data are handled and analyzed must never be compromised. By guarding these highest standards and principles of research and by accelerating the process that informs both clinicians and patients about their treatment choices, this model of international collaboration in breast cancer research will better serve the women whose lives are affected by this disease.