Susan G. Komen Founder: Competition is healthy for cancer research

“Competition is healthy. The issue is how to collaborate,” Nancy Brinker, founder of breast cancer organization Susan G. Komen, told Yahoo Finance when discussing cancer research at the Concordia Summit in New York City. “People are going to have to figure out a way to secure both risk/reward for developing therapeutics and sharing data.”

Brinker is determined to educate women all over the world about the risk and danger of breast cancer, and how you can be screened, treated and cured of the disease. Brinker, who co-chaired a panel at the Summit, brought together key players in cancer research to discuss ways to elevate the global priority of the fight against cancer.

By 2025, 19.3 million new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of 2012, which is the latest year for which information is available, there were 14.1 million new cancer cases diagnosed.

“We need better diagnostics,” said Brinker. “By being able to detect these cancers earlier and treat them earlier, we’ll have much less cost in the system. It’s not only cost effective, it’s the right thing to do.”

Susan G. Komen, which aims to reduce current breast cancer deaths by 50% in the US over the next decade, announced this week nearly $33 million in new research grants for 2016. The grants were given to projects in 23 states and seven countries to help accelerate the understanding of key areas in breast cancer research.