Prostate Cancer Foundation

Dedicated to accelerating the discovery, development and distribution of better treatments and ultimately a cure for prostate cancer -- a disease that will strike 1 in 6 American men.

Why do we exist?

At the Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF), we are doing everything in our power to beat cancer. Starting a little more than a decade ago, we turned the “cancer establishment” on its ear, transforming prostate cancer research from a backwater into one of the most important areas of cancer research. In the last thirteen years we have raised more than $240 million from major donors, corporations, leading brands and individuals to fund prostate cancer research, quickly establishing the PCF as the world’s leading philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research.

Prostate cancer is the most common non-skin cancer in America, striking over 232,000 new men each year. One in six men will get prostate cancer. As the baby boomer men reach the target zone for prostate cancer, beginning at age 50, the number of new cases is projected to increase dramatically. By 2015, there will be more than 300,000 new prostate cancer cases each year, a 50% increase.

What have you accomplished?

The Prostate Cancer Foundation has funded more than 1,200 prostate cancer research projects at more than 100 institutions worldwide. We have successfully advocated for massive increases in federal funding for prostate cancer research, leveraging contributions many times over. The Prostate Cancer Foundation has earned widespread respect for its efforts that have:

• Attracted and aggregated a critical mass of talented and dedicated scientists conducting basic and translational research;
• Created a rapid-response, high-impact funding system to accelerate research that reduced bureaucracy while maintaining scientific rigor;
• Influenced government to increase prostate cancer research funding twenty-fold from roughly $25 million in 1993 to over $500 million in 2004;
• Formed a Therapy Consortium of the eight leading research centers;
• Created the largest database of family-clustered prostate cancer cases;
• Created a tissue bank and animal model network; and
• Fostered collaboration among academic, corporate and governmental researchers through its annual Scientific Retreat and other means.

S. Ward Casscells Story

S. Ward Casscells, MD, Professor of Medicine, University of Texas, was diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer at the age of 48. “I’ll never forget the day my 5-year-old son came home from school, worried. One of the other kids told him I was going to die. Statistically speaking, my son’s friend was right. I’d been diagnosed with metastatic prostate cancer which had already spread to dozens of my bones. The prognosis: 17 months to live. But that feeling of hopelessness changed the day I met with my doctor, a Prostate Cancer Foundation funded oncologist at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. He immediately prescribed an aggressive integrated regimen of hormones and chemotherapy – a treatment that was developed through research funded by the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Thanks to the work of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, I am alive today and I’m feeling good.  I look forward to seeing my children graduate someday. Please join me in supporting this most important cause. Because lives are depending on it.”

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