Fred Hutch receives $710.5M from Bezos family to speed up clinical trials, translational research

The Bezos family has committed $710.5 million to Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center over the next 10 years-likely the largest single private contribution made to a cancer center in the U.S.
The Bezos family gift, announced Oct. 12, is part of Fred Hutch’s campaign to raise $3 billion in philanthropic money over the next decade to accelerate research in cancer and infectious disease.
“The need is enormous in cancer,” Thomas J. Lynch, president and director of Fred Hutch and holder of the Raisbeck Endowed Chair, said to The Cancer Letter. “The source of ideas, the true source of innovation that drives cures in cancer, comes from cancer centers. And that’s why we are so delighted to see this show of faith in us from the Bezos family.
“Now, the question you might ask is, ‘Why $3 billion?’” Lynch said. “Three billion is the number, when I look at over a 10-year period, that I think we need to be able to fuel research broadly across cancer. If you go to any of the top 10 cancer centers, all of them have plans to be able to try to do efforts in that range.”
Private gifts to institutions defy easy comparison.
The size of the Bezos family gift exceeds the $500 million Nike co-founder Phil Knight and wife Penny pledged to Oregon Health & Science University’s cancer center nearly a decade ago.
However, the terms of the two gifts differ.
In 2013, the Knights made a challenge grant that required OHSU to raise another $500 million within two years. The $500 million match was completed thanks to 10,000 donors from all 50 states and 14 countries, including $200 million from the state of Oregon and $100 million from Gert Boyle, then chairman of Columbia Sportswear (The Cancer Letter, Sept. 27, 2013, June 26, 2015). OHSU then went on to raise another $1 billion, of which $200 million was slated to go to cancer (The Cancer Letter, Sept. 23, 2016). The cancer center at that institution has been renamed the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute.
The gift from the Bezos family isn’t a naming gift, Lynch said.
“The Bezos family was very clear this was not about naming. In fact, they encouraged us to work with other donors to find naming opportunities for different facilities,” he said. (There is already a Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic at Fred Hutch’s South Lake Union campus).
Read more here: cancerletter.com/conversation...

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Crispr 9
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