Celebration Chain Builds Communities, Will Raise up to $25,000 for Charity NEW YORK, Sept. 18 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- AstraZeneca is pleased to announce the launch of the Celebration Chain, a unique new virtual fund- raising activity designed to honor women who have survived breast cancer as well as those currently facing the disease. All money raised will be donated to Living Beyond Breast Cancer, a nonprofit organization that supports and empowers women affected by the disease. To participate, individuals can log onto http://www.celebrationchain.com/. Each time a survivor profile is created; AstraZeneca will donate $1, up to $25,000, to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. "We've always put patients and their health first," said Meryl Weinreb, director of patient programs at AstraZeneca. "The Celebration Chain is another way to reinforce our commitment to these extraordinary women who have survived breast cancer while allowing them to become part of a community that is larger than their immediate family and friends." The Celebration Chain is a fun and easy way to honor loved ones, family, or friends who are breast cancer survivors while raising money for the nonprofit national organization, which supports initiatives to empower women affected by the disease. Here's how the Celebration Chain works: Friends and family of breast cancer survivors log onto http://www.celebrationchain.com/ and create a free personalized virtual "doll" on the site to represent the woman they would like to honor. The dolls are customized to reflect the honoree's features and personality traits. After creating their virtual "doll," users will share it with the woman they are celebrating, and forward it along to other friends and family who may also want to celebrate her. For every doll created, AstraZeneca will donate $1, up to $25,000, to Living Beyond Breast Cancer. Visitors to the Web site also will be able to obtain information about additional support programs offered by AstraZeneca including IN YOUR CORNER(TM), Visions of Hope(TM), and the American Cancer Society's Navigator Program. About Breast Cancer In the United States, breast cancer is the most frequently diagnosed cancer among women, and is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women, exceeded only by lung cancer.(1) It is estimated that 40,460 women in the U.S. will die of the disease in 2007.(1) Mammography screening, which is recommended annually for women 40 years of age and older, frequently detects breast cancer at an early stage, and thus, may improve survival chances. After increasing for over two decades, female breast cancer incidence rates leveled off from 2001 to 2003.(1) Mortality rates in women have steadily declined since 1990, decreasing by 3.3 percent per year in women younger than 50 and 2.0 percent per year in those 50 years and older.(1) About Living Beyond Breast Cancer Living Beyond Breast Cancer, based outside Philadelphia, is a national nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering all women affected by breast cancer to live as long as possible with the best quality of life. Programs and services include: conferences, teleconferences, the toll-free Survivors Helpline (888-753-5222); a Web site, http://www.lbbc.org/, which contains free quarterly newsletters; publications for African American and Latina women; recordings; networking programs for survivors and women of color; health care provider trainings; and the Paula A. Seidman Library and Resource Center. About AstraZeneca AstraZeneca is a major international health care business engaged in the research, development, manufacture and marketing of prescription pharmaceuticals and the supply of health care services. It is one of the world's leading pharmaceutical companies with health care sales of $26.47 billion and leading positions in sales of gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, neuroscience, respiratory, oncology and infection products. AstraZeneca is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (Global) as well as the FTSE4Good Index. In the United States, AstraZeneca is a $12.44 billion health care business with more than 12,000 employees. For nearly three decades, AstraZeneca has offered drug assistance programs side by side with its medicines, and over the past five years, has provided over three billion in savings to more than one million patients throughout the U.S. and Puerto Rico. AstraZeneca has been named one of the "100 Best Companies for Working Mothers" by Working Mother magazine and is the only large pharmaceutical company named to FORTUNE magazine's 2007 list of "100 Best Companies to Work For." In 2006, for the fifth consecutive year, Science magazine named AstraZeneca a "Top Employer" on its ranking of the world's most respected biopharmaceutical employers. For more information about AstraZeneca, please visit: http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/ (1) American Cancer Society, "Cancer Facts & Figures," 2007 DATASOURCE: AstraZeneca CONTACT: Laurie Casaday of AstraZeneca, +1-302-290-2624, Web site: http://www.astrazeneca-us.com/ http://www.celebrationchain.com/ http://www.lbbc.org/ Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/985887.html

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