Pharmaceutical Company Donates $10 Million to American Cancer Society

To Help Provide One-on-one Support for Cancer Patients in U.S. Hospitals

The American Cancer Society received a whole lot of love on Valentine's Day. A pharmaceutical company has pledged to donate $10 million to the American Cancer Society. The donation is going to be the second biggest donation in the history of the organization. This will be the largest donation ever made by a corporation. The donation will be earmarked to help provide one-on-one support for cancer patients in U.S. hospitals.

AstraZeneca PLC, an international pharmaceutical company, decided to make the unusual gift earlier today. The money will be used for a program that stations specially-trained Cancer Society employees in 60 hospitals and cancer treatment centers. Cancer society employees that are specially-trained will guide patients to social and emotional support, transportation, medical and financial assistance services.

The American Cancer Society plans to use the gift to help expand their program. The program will be expanded o 50 more locations in medically underserved areas, said Nancy Single, the Cancer Society's vice president for mission strategy. A large donation like this helps the society implement newer programs on a larger scale. This new program will allow patients of the American Cancer Society to receive more personalized forms of care and could help them deal with process better.

As noted, this is the second largest donation in the history of the American Cancer Society. The Atlanta-based Cancer Society was founded in 1913. They receive nearly $1 billion in gifts and grants each year. The most recent donation by a pharmaceutical company is very rare. It is even more rare to receive a donation from a drug company. Less than 2 percent of that comes from drug companies.

AstraZeneca is a London based pharmaceutical company. They recorded health care sales of more than $26 billion last year. The successful year they had was in part to the popular breast cancer drug tamoxifen the company created. AstraZeneca also makes about a half-dozen other breast and prostate cancer medications that have helped make them the successful company they are today.

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