Duarte, Calif.-based City of Hope has received a $150 million gift to fund pancreatic cancer research, the single largest gift in the health system's history, from philanthropists A. Emmet Stephenson Jr. and Tessa Stephenson Brand.
The father and daughter made the gift in honor of Toni Stephenson — Mr. Stephenson's wife and Ms. Stephenson Brand's mother — who died of pancreatic cancer in 2020 after surviving lymphoma, according to a Sept. 17 news release from City of Hope.
Part of the historic gift includes the establishment of the Stephenson Prize, an annual $1 million award for the scientists making the "most promising advancements in pancreatic cancer," the release said.
Other features of the gift include: the formation of the Stephenson Fellows Program and the annual Stephenson Pancreatic Cancer Research Symposium, pancreatic cancer clinical research, continued investment in the Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center at City of Hope, and the building of a pancreatic biorepository.
Pancreatic cancer has a five-year survival rate of 13%, the worst of any cancer type.
Read more about how the gift will be used and the Stephenson Prize here.