Press Releases

Hollywood’s Brightest Stars Unite Again for Stand Up To Cancer Canada

Stand Up To Cancer’s Live Broadcast on September 9
to Feature Special Performances by
Canadian Superstar Celine Dion
and Keith Urban with Little Big Town

Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Emma Stone,
Anna Kendrick,
Josh Gad, Niecy Nash,
Eric Stonestreet, Alison Sweeney, Ken Jeong,
Marcia Cross, Greg Grunberg, Danielle Campbell,
Charlie Wilson, Brittany Daniel and
SU2C Co-Founder Katie Couric
Among Those to Appear in Live One-Hour Event
Executive-Produced by Bradley Cooper

Event Will Air Simultaneously on CBC, City, CTV, Global and Other Canadian Services

http://www.standup2cancer.ca/en | facebook.com/su2c.ca | Instagram: @SU2C_CA | Twitter: @SU2C_CA

TORONTO – August 16, 2016 – Stand Up To Cancer Canada (SU2C Canada), a program of EIF Canada, a Canadian registered charity, is proud to announce the Hollywood community is once again joining forces to support Stand Up To Cancer’s fifth biennial televised fundraising special, the second inclusive of Canada, on Friday, Sept. 9 (8:00 – 9:00 PM ET/PT / 7:00 PM CT). Ben Affleck, Matthew McConaughey, Emma Stone, Anna Kendrick, Josh Gad, Niecy Nash, Eric Stonestreet, Alison Sweeney, Ken Jeong, Marcia Cross, Greg Grunberg, Danielle Campbell, Charlie Wilson,Brittany Daniel and SU2C Co-Founder Katie Couric will all appear in the inspiring broadcast, which will be carried on all four major English-language networks in Canada, as well as a number of other Canadian services.

Celine Dion, the top-selling Canadian recording artist of all time, will perform moving tributes in honour of all those standing up to cancer. Celebrated recording artists Keith Urban and Little Big Town will also perform together. Additional stars and performers will be announced in the coming weeks.

Academy Award®-nominated actor Bradley Cooper, founder of the Bradley Charles Cooper Foundation, will executive-produce the broadcast event and also appear. Cooper will work alongside award-winning live-event producers Done + Dusted, in collaboration with the Stand Up To Cancer production team.

“We all have a reason to stand up,” Cooper said. “Stand Up To Cancer is a sustained movement that impacts millions of lives. We honour the personal stories that motivate individuals to fight, and that highlight the urgent need to get new treatments to the patients who so desperately need them.”

Leading up to the live show, SU2C is rallying the public in a new social media campaign, #Reasons2StandUp, inviting supporters to share, through photos and video posts, how cancer has impacted their lives. Whether standing up for a friend, family member, or because of a personal experience with the disease, #Reasons2StandUp reminds the world that we are all in this fight together. Select user-generated content will be featured on the September 9th telecast.

The telecast will broadcast live from The Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall in downtown Los Angeles. For the second time, Stand Up To Cancer Canada will simultaneously broadcast the Canadian-inclusive telecast across all four major English-language Canadian broadcasters: CBC, City, CTV, and Global. Additionally, AMI, Bloomberg TV Canada, CHCH, CHEK, Fight Network, Hollywood Suite, Joytv, NTV and TLN will also air the telecast. In addition, the show will stream live on Yahoo Canada and will be available on shomi and TELUS Optik TV.

In the U.S., ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC, along with American Forces Network, ASPiRE, AUDIENCE Network, Bloomberg TV, Bravo, Comedy Central, Discovery Life, E! Entertainment, EPIX, ESPNEWS, FM, FS2, Fusion, FXM, Great American Country, HBO, HLN, ION Television, LMN, Logo, MLB Network, National Geographic, Pivot, RLTV, SHOWTIME, Smithsonian Channel, STARZ, STARZ ENCORE, TBS, Tr3s, VH1, and WGN America are donating one hour of simultaneous commercial-free primetime for the telecast. For the first time, a Spanish version of the Stand Up To Cancer telecast will air on Galavision, HBO Latino, STARZ ENCORE ESPAÑOL,Univision Deportes and Univision Puerto Rico.

This star-studded appeal continues to build public support for groundbreaking translational research, supported through SU2C programs, which strive to provide patients with new therapies quickly to save lives now. SU2C brings together scientists from different disciplines across institutions and international boundaries to collaborate on finding new treatments that can account for more than 80 percent of all cancer diagnoses in Canada and the U.S.

The first four SU2C telecasts took place on September 5, 2008, September 10, 2010, September 7, 2012, and September 5, 2014, and were made available to more than 190 countries.

To date, more than $370 million has been pledged to support SU2C’s innovative model of collaborative cancer research. Since launching in 2008, Stand Up To Cancer has brought together more than 1,200 of the best and the brightest research scientists, including 90 in Canada, from more than 140 leading institutions in seven countries to work together on 19 “Dream Teams” and six translational research teams. SU2C has also funded 36 early-career, innovative scientists carrying out high-risk, potentially high-reward projects. The research is aimed at ending cancer’s reign as a leading cause of death worldwide. SU2C-funded researchers have planned, launched or completed more than 160 clinical trials involving over 9,000 patients. Work by SU2C-supported researchers has led to FDA approval of two treatments.

Stand Up To Cancer Canada, which launched on July 9, 2014, has two pan-Canadian “Dream Teams” of top researchers:

  • The SU2C Canada-CBCF Breast Cancer Dream Team, led by Tak W. Mak, PhD, director of the Campbell Family Institute for Breast Cancer Research at Princess Margaret Cancer Centre in Toronto, and Co-leader Samuel Aparicio, BM, BCh, PhD, Nan and Lorraine Robertson chair in breast cancer research at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
  • The SU2C Canada Cancer Stem Cell Dream Team, led by Peter B. Dirks, MD, PhD, neurosurgeon and senior scientist at The Hospital for Sick Children (SickKids) in Toronto, and Co-leader Samuel Weiss, PhD, director of the Hotchkiss Brain Institute and professor in the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary.

Collaborators providing multi-year support for SU2C Canada research through the inaugural Stand Up to Cancer Canada Initiative include: Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation (CBCF), with support from CIBC; Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Cancer Stem Cell Consortium; Genome Canada; and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. AstraZeneca Canada and MasterCard are the first corporate supporters of SU2C Canada.

Since SU2C launched in the U.S., Major League Baseball (MLB) has provided both financial support and countless opportunities to build the Stand Up To Cancer grassroots movement by encouraging fans worldwide to get involved. In addition to MLB, SU2C’s “Visionary” donors include Bristol-Myers Squibb; Cancer Treatment Centers of America®; Genentech, a member of the Roche Group; Mastercard; and The Sidney Kimmel Foundation. Major donors and collaborators include American Airlines, American Cancer Society, CVS Health, Fifth Third Bank, The Lustgarten Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research, Merck, and Rally Health. Other key supporters and collaborators include Cancer Research Institute, Cancer Research UK, Dutch Cancer Society, Farrah Fawcett Foundation, Lilly Oncology, The Laura Ziskin Family Trust, Melanoma Research Alliance, National Ovarian Cancer Coalition, Ovarian Cancer Research Fund Alliance, The Parker Foundation, Prostate Cancer Foundation, St. Baldrick’s Foundation and Van Andel Research Institute.

About Stand Up To Cancer Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) raises funds to accelerate the pace of research to get new therapies to patients quickly and save lives now. SU2C, a program of the Entertainment Industry Foundation (EIF), a 501(c)(3) charitable organization,was established in 2008 by film and media leaders who utilize the industry’s resources to engage the public in supporting a new, collaborative model of cancer research, and to increase awareness about cancer prevention, as well as progress being made in the fight against the disease. As SU2C’s scientific partner, the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and a Scientific Advisory Committee led by Nobel Laureate Phillip A. Sharp, PhD, conduct rigorous, competitive review processes to identify the best research proposals to recommend for funding, oversee grants administration, and provide expert review of research progress. Current members of the SU2C Council of Founders and Advisors (CFA) include Katie Couric, Sherry Lansing, Lisa Paulsen, Rusty Robertson, Sue Schwartz, Pamela Oas Williams, Ellen Ziffren, and Kathleen Lobb. The late Laura Ziskin was also a co-founder. SU2C was formally launched on May 27, 2008. Sung Poblete, Ph.D., R.N., has served as SU2C’s president since 2011. For more information on Stand Up To Cancer, visit www.standup2cancer.org.

About EIF Canada / Stand Up To Cancer Canada EIF Canada, a Canadian registered charity (Reg. # 80550 6730 RR0001), was founded by the U.S.-based Entertainment Industry Foundation in 2013. Stand Up To Cancer Canada (SU2C Canada) is a program of EIF Canada that raises funds to support collaborative cancer research teams, as well as education and awareness programs conducted in Canada. Organizations collaborating with the SU2C Canada initiative include the Canadian Breast Cancer Foundation, with support from CIBC; the Cancer Stem Cell Consortium, with funding from Genome Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research; and the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research. MasterCard and AstraZeneca are the first Canadian corporate supporters of SU2C Canada. For more information on Stand Up To Cancer Canada, visit http://www.standup2cancer.ca.

AACR International – Canada AACR International – Canada serves the Canadian cancer research community, in coordination with the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR). The AACR, the world’s first and largest cancer research organization in the world, promotes and supports the highest quality in cancer research. The AACR marshals the full spectrum of expertise from the cancer community to accelerate progress in the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer through high-quality scientific and educational programs. It funds innovative, meritorious research grants, research fellowships, and career development awards to scientists/investigators and clinicians globally. As the Scientific Partner to Stand Up To Cancer Canada, AACR International – Canada provides scientific oversight and conducts expert peer review and research administration. For more information, please visit http://www.AACRCanada.ca. AACR International – Canada is a registered charity in Canada.

Media Contacts:

ID PR Sheri Goldberg 212-334-0333 su2c@id-pr.com

Rubenstein PR Courtney Greenwald 212-843-8093 cgreenwald@rubenstein.com

For questions regarding red carpet or day of event coverage, please contact SLATE PR:
SLATE PR
Andy Gelb/Elyse Weissman
310-461-0111
andy@slate-pr.com / elyse@slate-pr.com

To apply for red carpet press credentials for this event, you must fill out the online application by Friday, August 26:
https://slatepr.wufoo.com/forms/stand-up-to-cancer-2016/

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