City of Hope announced plans to build a new comprehensive cancer campus at FivePoint Gateway in Orange County. As part of that plan, it will invest more than $1 billion into the project.
City of Hope announced plans to build a new comprehensive cancer campus at FivePoint Gateway in Orange County. As part of that plan, it will invest more than $1 billion into the project.
The original plan announced last year was to build a $200 million, 73,000-square-foot cancer center by 2025, but has since expanded the project, with resultant expansion of the budget.
Now the plan for the 11 acres will include acquiring a 190,000-square-foot building that will be an innovative cancer research and treatment center. The new plans also accelerate the project, which is now scheduled to open in 2021.
“We’ve spent the last year listening intently to the people in Orange County and identifying how we can contribute to meeting both the present and future community needs,” states Annette M. Walker, president, City of Hope Orange County. “It became evident that we needed to bring our highly specialized treatments as soon as possible. We’re delivering on our promise and opening our doors faster to alleviate the unnecessary hardships on patients and their families. Residents soon will be able to access City of Hope’s latest and most advanced therapies closer to home.”
Officials with City of Hope say that almost 20% of residents leave the area for advanced care. Many of them utilize the City of Hope’s main campus in Duarte, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, which is a two-hour commute from Orange County.
They also point out that although Orange County has a reputation for healthy living, the cancer rate is still projected to increase by 18% over the next 10 years. Also, the county’s population is aging faster than the average in the U.S.
The campus will include a specialty hospital focused on treating and curing cancer, an outpatient cancer center with diagnostic imaging and screening, precision medicine and early detection, medical oncology, chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgical oncology and ambulatory surgery.
The campus’s research center will conduct Phase I, II and III clinical trials.
“City of Hope researchers are working every day to speed novel cancer drugs and immune cell therapies from our laboratories into the clinic for our patients,” stated Michael Caligiuri, president, City of Hope National Medical Center, and the Deana and Steve Campbell Physician-in-Chief Distinguished Chair in Honor of Alexandra Levine. “With more than 500 clinical trials and world-class experts across cancer types, City of Hope is changing the landscape of cancer care. Our expansion into Orange County provides greater access to our highly specialized medical expertise and to the next generation of promising cures and treatments.”
City of Hope has more than 30 care sites throughout Southern California, but this is its first foray into prosperous Orange County. Yet, the county, Walker says, doesn’t have much specialty cancer care.
The expansion included the acquisition of another 11 acres of land and a 190,000-square-foot building. Both allowed for the accelerated timeline. Walker told Modern Healthcare that it expedited the entry to market by at least two years. The building has never been occupied.
The institution’s preventative cancer work in Orange County will leverage its existing affiliation with TGen, a genomics research institute, as well as participation in the Oncology Research Information Exchange Network, a collaborative research effort between North American cancer centers.