Mayo Clinic’s cancer center receives gift of $49 million
Published: December 3, 2005
Richard M. Schulze, the founder and chairman of Best Buy Co., has pledged almost $49 million to the Mayo Clinic to create a center to develop new treatments for cancer.
The gift, announced Friday, is one of the biggest donations in Mayo’s history and the largest ever to the clinic’s cancer center.
Dr. Denis Cortese, Mayo’s president, said the money would have “an enormous impact” on patients. “We are thankful the Schulze family has chosen to share their personal wealth and interest in a way that can make such a difference for so many people,” he said in a statement.
Schulze, 64, declined to talk about the gift, which his family foundation will pay out over seven years. His first wife, Sandra, was treated at Mayo before she died of cancer in 2001.
In a statement issued through the Mayo Clinic, however, Schulze said the chance to support such research was “too strong an opportunity to pass up.”
The money will allow Mayo to expand its efforts to develop new tests and treatments using gene therapy and other cutting-edge science, said Dr. Franklyn Prendergast, director of Mayo’s Cancer Center. It will also launch a program aimed at understanding and treating the “horrific pain” often associated with advanced cancer.
“We really do have a responsibility to translate our discoveries into tangible results, meaning something that directly benefits the patient,” Prendergast said.
He said Mayo will hire as many as a dozen more scientists as part of the new Schulze Center for Novel Therapeutics, which will be based at the clinic’s Gonda Building in Rochester. Schulze and several family members will serve on an advisory committee overseeing its work.
Schulze, who has been called the wealthiest man in Minnesota, has given millions of dollars to cancer-related causes in recent months. In May, his foundation gave $7.5 million to the American Cancer Society to build or expand housing for patients and family at the Mayo Clinic and the University of Minnesota.
The family has said it wants to focus research efforts on types of cancer that usually receive little funding. Some of the designated priorities include cancers of the breast, ovaries, uterus, lung, brain, liver and kidneys.
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