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KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Utah County’s Huntsman Cancer Institute breaks ground in Vineyard on Tuesday.
- The new facility aims to enhance cancer care, research and education while bringing care closer to many patients.
- The institute has receive enough donations to fund 75% of the $400 million first phase of the project, including $75 million from Huntsman Foundation.
VINEYARD — Construction has begun on the Utah County location of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, a site that will reduce travel time by over an hour for thousands of patients, as well as expand the ability to research and educate.
“We will bring comprehensive cancer care closer to the communities we serve, will advance innovative cancer research, will train the next generation of scientists and health workers and will support our communities to live the healthiest lives possible — all the while working to eradicate cancer from the face of the earth,” Mary Beckerle, CEO at the Huntsman Cancer Institute, said in a statement ahead of the Tuesday’s groundbreaking.
Utah County patients had over 40,000 visits to the Huntsman Cancer Institute at the University of Utah last year, and these visits were used to determine what will open first at the Utah County location.
Utah County patients, donors, community leaders, students and Huntsman Cancer Institute employees attended the groundbreaking event in Vineyard close to Utah Lake. Although the ceremonial groundbreaking happened Tuesday, site work to prepare the land began in November. The center is aiming to open to patients in the fall of 2028.
University of Utah President Taylor Randall said the new location is a “bold step” toward a future with no cancer and expands access to cancer care and research, especially to rural communities. He said research is “the engine that drives transformative change.”
The first phase of the Vineyard Huntsman Cancer Institute is estimated to cost $400 million, the largest investment in the institute’s history. A $75 million matching donation from the Huntsman Foundation began the process to raise money in June 2023. The statement said other donations from Utah, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Flagship Companies, Woodbury Corporation and others have helped the institute reach 75% of the funding needed.
Peter Huntsman, CEO of the Huntsman Cancer Institute, said in the statement that the organization’s vision will “help change cancer outcomes for a generation.”
“Today, we make the investment that will shape the next generation of care and research and hopefully bring an end to cancer,” he said.
This story will be updated.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.