Michigan State University’s vision of transforming health care via biomedical research received a big boost today with support and a significant gift from Doug Meijer and the Meijer Foundation.
“Bringing hope, health and healing for all people is our imperative,” said Norman J. Beauchamp Jr., MSU’s executive vice president for health sciences. “We are creating a facility defined by the ability to create and implement tools and approaches that make affordable, compassionate and equitable care a reality. Academia, industry, health systems, community – together everything is possible.”
The Meijer gift was awarded to the MSU College of Human Medicine for a theranostics clinic that includes a cyclotron-equipped radiopharmacy and PET/MR scanner in a new medical innovation building at the MSU Grand Rapids Innovation Park. This building will be named for Doug Meijer, a cancer survivor and advocate for treatment for all cancer patients.
“The Meijer Family has always been passionate about health care, and I am thankful to have the ability to carry that passion forward,” Meijer said. “This new medical innovation building will help save lives and improve the quality of life for many people through remarkable cancer-fighting technology. Patients will no longer have to travel overseas to receive needed treatment. I am living proof this technology works.”
The project will include building one of the world’s most advanced cyclotron-equipped radiopharmacies focusing on manufacturing a wide variety of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals for both clinical and research use.
“The initiative supported by this generous gift could have a tremendous impact on health care by helping detect disease sooner, offering more effective and less invasive treatments, eliminating unnecessary procedures, reducing side effects and increasing time in remission,” said MSU President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D. “This innovative partnership between MSU, the western Michigan community and business participants could ultimately improve patients’ quality of life and help cut health care costs. It is this type of global impact that MSU strives to accomplish, and with generous gifts like this, we can do just that.”
Groundbreaking for the Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Center is planned for Nov. 18 at the MSU Grand Rapids Innovation Park.
In June, Health Innovation Partners – a real estate development joint venture between Rockford Construction, Walsh Construction/Walsh Investors, Murphy Development Group and Michigan State University, signed a long-term lease for the development of a medical innovation building and parking structure at the MSU Grand Rapids Innovation Park. The first building at the site, the MSU Grand Rapids Research Center, opened September 2017. The Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Facility is anticipated to open in late 2021.
Story originally published Oct. 25, 2019. Story updated Jan. 20, 2020.