Prostate Care Foundation Receives $2.5 Million Donation

SANTA MONICA, CA – The Prostate Care Foundation received a $2.5 million donation from Robert F. Smith, the founder, chairman and CEO of Vista Equity Partners, the Santa Monica-based foundation announced Monday.

The donation will go toward research on black men and fund the Robert Frederick Smith Center of Precision Oncology Excellence in Chicago to aid veterans battling prostate cancer, according to PCF. Smith's donation is the largest ever made specifically targeting research and care for black men with prostate cancer, foundation officials said.

"I am delighted to support the lifesaving work of accelerating promising medical research to serve our nation's veterans who urgently need better treatments and cures and access to cutting-edge precision oncology," Smith said. "On the day we remember the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., let us also remember his messages of service and of equality. With these resources, we will do right by those brave veterans who served our country, and we will change the odds for millions of African-American men who should be surviving prostate cancer."

According to PCF, one in eight men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer, and it is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among veterans, accounting for a third of all male cancer cases. Black men are 73 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than any other race or ethnicity and 2.3 times more likely to die from the disease, while little is known about the biological reasons for the disparities, according to PCF.

"We are profoundly grateful to Robert F. Smith for his incredible generosity and his leadership," said Jonathan W. Simons, PCF's president and CEO. "The Smith Center of Excellence represents a new model of American philanthropy and will pave the way for groundbreaking discoveries that will have a transformative impact on our research enterprise and its role in improving health equity for veterans and their families. These survival disparities represent a real crisis, and this gift – so timely in the spirit of honoring the legacy of Dr. King – has the power to save lives."

Founded in 1993, PCF in Santa Monica said it has raised more than $745 million and provided funding to more than 2,000 research programs at nearly 200 cancer centers and universities.

City News Service and Patch staffer Emily Holland contributed to this post; Image via Shutterstock