Bill Freedman

Bill Freedman lost his wife, the actress Toby Robins to breast cancer in 1986. Shocked and devastated he looked deeper into the issue only to find that Britain had one of the highest mortality rates from breast cancer in the world, with 15,000 women dying of the disease every year. “I couldn’t believe with such a high mortality rate there was no charity or organisation devoted to trying to find a cure for the disease. Having lost my wife to it, I couldn’t live with that!”

From dream to reality

Bill spoke to several doctors and scientists and met Professor Barry Gusterson whose idea of a centre dedicated to breast cancer research matched his dream of starting a charity with a single-minded mission to fund breast cancer research.

"When we spoke to Barry, we fell in love with his vision – it was exactly the same as ours – to bring together the best scientists and doctors under one roof, launch long-term research programmes and be able to fund it through charity.”

Breaking through taboos

Apart from founding Breakthrough, Bill is proud of breaking through the taboo that existed in the late 1980s, of speaking about breast cancer. "It was a secret disease. Once we did not speak of it, now it is openly taked about - Breakthrough broke that taboo and I'm proud of that." 

Today Breakthrough campaigns for improvements in breast cancer services and treatments, and raises awareness of breast cancer signs and symptoms. As a direct result more women take advantage of the national screening programme, are diagnosed and treated earlier leading to a better outcome. The heart of Breakthrough - dedicated breast cancer research - still beats strongly and thanks to all our supporters since 1991 nearly £50 million has gone directly into breast cancer research at the Breakthrough Toby Robins Breast Cancer Research Centre.