The study of disease causes has intrigued generations of researchers, driven by the potential to discover new treatments or simply out of curiosity. Progress in understanding the biological mechanisms of various diseases has shaped different eras in public health, each closely linked to breakthroughs in understanding disease etiology and pathophysiology.

In 1975 the Société de Médecine Interne Cancérologique (SMIC) was created (1). Since the very beginning this society had an international scope as outlined in a letter to Silvio Monfardini by Maurice Schneider “In July 1975, Georges Mathé and I decided to sponsor every year a convention in the first week end of December in Nice.

In the early 2010s, many European centres joined forces to form the Prostate Cancer Consortium in Europe (PEACE) to carry out phase 3 trials in prostate cancer field. After about 10 years, 7 projects, PEACE-1 is now the first trial of the PEACE programme to be completed that has put into the market the triplet therapy for patients with metastatic prostate cancer.