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Safeway raises more than $11 million for prostate cancer research

7/21/2010

PLEASANTON, Calif. During what has become a familiar summer tradition that reaches millions of Safeway customers each week, the company raised more than $11.6 million for prostate cancer research, Safeway announced Wednesday.

Since 2001, the company and its customers have raised $65.4 million for prostate cancer research.

“Ten years ago this unique funding and awareness raising channel didn’t exist,” stated Jonathan Simons, CEO and president of the Prostate Cancer Foundation. “Safeway changed that and, in the process, has altered the trajectory of the disease.”

Mortality rates markedly have declined since Safeway joined the cause nearly ten years ago, he said. “No business has done more to remove the stigma from prostate cancer and create a dialog about the disease,” Simons said.

Over the last several years, the company has funded a research team led by Robert Getzenberg and Theodore DeWeese of The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in partnership with researchers from MIT, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, the University of Michigan and The Prostate Cancer Center of Vancouver, Canada. The team is working to increase patient response to a variety of therapies — including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and immunotherapy — by injecting nanoparticles into the patient.

“Anytime you can engage or fund research that extends life or the quality of life, which is what PCF does, you stand to make a significant difference,” commented Safeway chairman, president and CEO Steve Burd.

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