San Antonio—[Updated 5:07 p.m. See below.] The nonprofit San Antonio Cancer Foundation announced this morning that it is giving $17 million for improvements to the Cancer Therapy & Research Center, according to a spokeswoman for the center.
The cash will help build a renovated welcome center for patients, a diagnostic suite, an expanded pharmacy, and an area for patients to receive infusions of drugs, according to the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, where the cancer center is based. The university will also receive $12 million from the University of Texas System, according to a Health Science Center spokesman. [Updated with University of Texas System numbers.]
The Health Science Center also says it plans to hire a new medical director. A national search is under way. Once the infrastructure improvements are complete in mid-2017, the Health Science Center said it would collaborate with M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, another UT institution based Houston, to turn the San Antonio cancer center into a “comprehensive and clinically integrated cancer care program,” according to a statement.
The San Antonio Cancer Foundation is tightly affiliated with the cancer center. (It was previously known as the Cancer Therapy & Research Center Foundation.) It typically makes multimillion dollar gifts to the university and the cancer center each year: $10.2 million in 2011 for new hiring new cancer researchers and admitting more patients, then $4.7 million, $5.8 million, and $3.8 million in 2012, 2013, and 2014, respectively, according to financial documents.
