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April 26 • 2018
jn
EQUAL HOUSING
OPPORTUNITY
$20 million gift to launch the Henry Ford
Pancreatic Cancer Center.
H
enry Ford Health System
announced a new $20 mil-
lion gift to launch the Henry
Ford Pancreatic Cancer Center, which
will focus on global collaborations to
develop new methods for the early
detection of pancreatic cancer — a
devastating disease with a 5-year sur-
vival rate of only 8 percent.
The gift is made possible by support
from an individual donor who wishes
to remain anonymous.
This $20 million gift will help to
establish partnerships between Henry
Ford and leading national and inter-
national organizations to identify
means to detect pancreatic cancer
at an earlier stage, with best-in-class
collaborations and technological
advancements.
“We are grateful for this transfor-
mational gift that will allow Henry
Ford to bring the best minds in the
world together to shine an important
light on pancreatic cancer. It marks
a crucial step in advancing pancre-
atic cancer research with the goal of
increasing survivorship for patients
diagnosed with this terrible disease,”
says Wright Lassiter III, president and
CEO, Henry Ford Health System.
This gift builds on the
tremendous momentum
created by Detroit business-
man and philanthropist
Mort Harris, who donated
$20 million to Henry Ford in
December 2016 in honor of
his late wife, Brigitte, to back
the Brigitte Harris Cancer
Mort Harris
Pavilion in Detroit, opening
in 2020.
The largest individual gift
in Henry Ford’s history, Harris’ dona-
tion is part of a $40 million package
to support the building project and
three specific program areas: precision
medicine, brain cancer and pancre-
atic cancer, which Brigitte battled for
almost two years before she passed
away in 2016. While incredible advanc-
es in cancer diagnosis and treatment
have been made and some types of
cancer are now curable, pancreatic
cancer remains nearly a universally
fatal diagnosis, according to Steven
N. Kalkanis, M.D., medical direc-
tor, Henry Ford Cancer Institute and
chair, Department of Neurosurgery.
“One of the challenges is pancreatic
cancer is often diagnosed late, general-
ly at an advanced stage, making it dif-
ficult to treat,” he said. “If we are going
to move the needle, we need a global
crowd-sourced effort to diagnose pan-
creatic cancer earlier and give patients
a fighting chance for survival.”
An estimated 53,670 people are
diagnosed each year with pancreatic
cancer. There is currently no effective
screening tool available to diagnose
pancreatic cancer early. Most people
do not experience any symptoms of
pancreatic cancer until the cancer has
progressed to an advanced stage.
David Kwon, M.D., direc-
tor of Surgical Oncology, Henry
Ford Cancer Institute, and direc-
tor, Multidisciplinary Pancreas
Clinic at Henry Ford Hospital, will
help to oversee the Henry Ford
Pancreatic Cancer Center.
He notes that the scale and oppor-
tunity of this global collaboration
will provide significant benefit and
efficiencies that will change the land-
scape of pancreatic cancer through
its focus on earlier detection and
clinical trials to advance treatment.
“Never has there been a
greater momentum in the fight
against pancreatic cancer and,
unfortunately, the incidence
of pancreatic cancer will only
continue to rise,” Kwon said.
“To effectively fight pancre-
atic cancer, we need to work
to find solutions to problems
that have eluded clinicians
and researchers to date, while
embracing a culture of inno-
vation and collaboration.”
The $20 million gift will establish
a Multi-Institutional Pancreatic
Consortium, led by Henry Ford. The
global consortium will serve to drive
the research initiatives with focus on
early detection, data analytics, trans-
lational research, precision medicine
and clinical trials.
An endowed director’s fund will
support the hiring of a leading pan-
creatic cancer clinical leader and a
research leader for the Henry Ford
Pancreatic Cancer Center as well as
an administrative director. •