Amazon founder Bezos Family Foundation donates $711 million to cancer research

The family foundation of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced a donation of 711 million to the Seattle-based Fred Hutch Cancer Center (Fred Hutch Cancer Center) on Wednesday, local time in the United States. USD (about 5.098 billion RMB). This is the largest donation the center has ever received and one of the highest for a cancer research institution in recent years. Fred Hatch Cancer Center said the donation will fund 36 new research laboratories, the construction of a large research facility, clinical trial infrastructure, and immunotherapy research over a decade.

Thomas Lynch, president, and director of the center said he reached out to Mike Bezos and Jackie Bezos to understand their motivations for giving. Jackie is Bezos' mother and Mike is his stepfather.

Lynch said the Bezos family attaches great importance to advances in research and treatment. "Don't underestimate the importance of urgency, I think it's something I'm very passionate about, and I know Mike and Jackie are also very interested in being able to bring a cure to patients soon," he said.

The Bezos family has donated nearly $68 million to the institution since 2009, according to the Fred Hatch Cancer Center. In a statement, Mike said: "We hope that these investments will provide answers to the most pressing medical questions. We also hope that this will inspire others to join us in the pursuit of scientific and medical breakthroughs."

The new donation comes as the U.S. president is calling on the private sector and foundations to join the Cancer Moon Shot in order to advance the goal he set in February to reduce U.S. cancer deaths by 50 percent over the next 25 years.

USC cancer researcher and professor Peter Kuhn said the size of the gift and investment in complementary areas is a testament to the trust philanthropists such as the Bezos family place in academia to give value back to society.

Lynch said the Fred Hatch Cancer Center wants to speed up the pace of clinical trials, with the goal of passing the review and starting trials within 90 days.

Nilofer S. Azad, professor of oncology at the Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, said researchers and clinicians will be able to The work carried out by the cancer center will also benefit patients and researchers elsewhere in the United States. "We can use scientific knowledge in practical ways to transform patient care, but it does require a lot of resources," she said.

In September, the Fred Hatch Cancer Center received a massive $78 million gift from Stuart and Molly Sloan. In 2021, the agency reported that about $86.4 million, or 8 percent of its $984 million in total revenue, came from charitable giving.

Lynch said: "Relevant research has given you hope, and it has given us hope that patients in the future may have different options."

The Bezos Family Foundation, the charitable organization that Bezos established as he used Amazon to create his enormous fortune, has donated billions of dollars to charitable causes. Bezos' ex-wife MacKenzie Scott has donated more than $12 billion to nonprofits since their divorce in 2019.

This year, many billionaires have focused their donations on cancer research. In February, KKR co-founder Henry Kravis and his wife, economist Marie-Josee Kravis, donated to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York $100 million. Recently, Blackstone CEO Jon Grey and his wife donated $55 million to Penn College to fund research institutes focused on early detection and prevention of breast, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancers.