The Society for Cancer Research was founded on 4 February 1935 in order to carry out and promote scientific and practical work in the field of cancer research and cancer treatment on the basis of advice given by Rudolf Steiner. The founding initiative came from medical doctors.
At Steiner's suggestion, the physician Ita Wegman had already developed an injection preparation from mistletoe in 1917 together with the Zurich pharmacist Adolf Hauser. In 1921, she founded the Clinical Therapeutic Institute in Arlesheim, where she further developed mistletoe therapy for cancer. After Steiner's death in 1925, Ita Wegman campaigned for the further practical development of mistletoe pharmacy and implemented Steiner's information in the preparation Iscador, which was registered in Bern in 1926 and has been produced and distributed worldwide since 1927.
The physician Werner Kaelin was in 1931 one of the initiators of the "Physicians' Association for Cancer Research" ("Ärztering für Krebsforschung") that offered a platform for the exchange of ideas on mistletoe therapy for cancer at annual meetings.
In addition to the physicians Ita Wegman and Werner Kaelin, the natural scientist Rudolf Hauschka and the eurythmist Lina Kaelin were also members of the founding board of the Society for Cancer Research. Insofar as mistletoe pharmacy and mistletoe therapy are based on specific suggestions and guidelines from Rudolf Steiner, the Society for Cancer Research takes these anthroposophical principles into account in its work in accordance with its statutes.