In the last five years alone, three million Avon pins have been sold in the UK.

The Avon Breast Cancer Crusade was launched in the UK in 1992 to raise funds for and increase awareness of breast cancer. Today, the Crusade covers over 50 Avon countries across the world.

Breast Cancer - The Facts

• Breast cancer is currently the most common female cancer in the UK.
• Nearly 46,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK.
• 1 in 9 women will develop breast cancer at some point in their lifetime.
• Over 80% of breast cancers occur in women over 50 years of age.
• More than 1,000 women die from the disease every month in the UK.
• Men can also develop breast cancer but this is much more rare. Around 300 men are diagnosed with breast cancer each year in the UK.
• More women than ever in the UK are surviving breast cancer thanks to better awareness, better treatments and better screening.

In the UK Avon has worked in partnership with charities including Breakthrough Breast Cancer, Macmillan Cancer Support and Breast Cancer Care. Avon's activities have supported research, awareness raising, lobbying and care and support services.

As Breakthrough's longest standing corporate supporter, Avon has been pivotal in Breakthrough's growth. Supporting Breakthrough since 1992 has enabled us to raise vital funds towards their work.

A third of the funding needed to establish the Breakthrough Toby Robins Breast Cancer Research Centre was raised through Avon activities. Since the centre opened in 1999, annual fundraising has been allocated to key projects, including the Breakthrough Generations Study, a national study into the causes of breast cancer involving 100,000 women. The Crusade funds five clinical fellows fondly known as 'Dr Avons'. The Dr Avon programme was the first clinical fellowship program by a UK beauty company. As both qualified medical Dr's and talented scientists, each Dr Avon plays a vital link between science and medicine, bringing the benefits of scientific research directly to women with breast cancer. Each Dr Avon is in a unique position to identify problems faced by breast cancer patients that could be solved using laboratory research. Whilst understanding the possibilities of science, and they're aware of the every-day issues faced by women with breast cancer.

By growing living cells in the laboratory, the Dr Avons can discover what drives a breast cancer's growth, and what treatments might be effective against it.

	£20 buys enough 'cell-food solution' to keep cells alive in the laboratory for a month, and each Dr Avon uses hundreds of litres every year to understand what drives breast cancer growth and what treatments might be effective against it.		£5 could buy 100 microscope slides, helping the Dr Avons study different types of breast cancer samples in minute detail, to look with how they work and respond to treatment.
	Dr Avon's carefully prepare all the experiment ingredients using a 'pipette'. They use their pipettes hundreds of times every week, thousands of times a year! £125 buys a pipette.		A microscope costs over £3,000 and is used each day to examine cells.

Chris Askew, Director of Fundraising at Breakthrough says:

"We are incredibly inspired by Avon's mission to improve the lives of women and their families, through their global support of the breast cancer cause and Breakthrough specifically in the UK. The constant enthusiasm of staff, representatives, and customers is fantastic.

This is an incredibly exciting time for Breakthrough's research work. Avon has always been at the heart of our work and plays a very significant role in helping to drive forward our ambitious plans".

For more information on Breakthrough's work visit: www.breakthrough.org.uk