Back Back
Is Divorce the New Trend in Oncology Partnerships?
Activity Information Ask a Question

Activity

Progress
1
Course Completed
Activity Information

Released: January 24, 2025

Expiration: January 23, 2026

John Marshall
John Marshall, MD
Never Miss an Episode of Oncology Unscripted

Subscribe Now
Catch Up On All Episodes of Oncology Unscripted

Watch Now

MedBuzz: Is Divorce the New Trend in Oncology Partnerships?

Let’s look a little bit of how this is beginning to trickle down into our world of cancer research and cancer care. And I have a couple of sort of high-level things. You probably heard about both of them. One of them is a very, very famous scientist and clinician, Brian Druker, who is essentially He invented Gleevec, got it to come out to treat all the diseases that has been treated, been the head at Oregon for many, many years, a dynamic leader, fundraiser and everything else. Just a couple of weeks ago, on a dime, he resigned. 69 years of age, got plenty of life left in him, I hope. And he basically said, look, we're not aligned with healthcare systems and research. We don't know how the two are going to play together. I work at a big health care system here in the Baltimore, Washington area, and we're trying to maintain an NCI designated comprehensive cancer center inside of a big health care system that values productivity and margin and all of those things. And so, we've been lucky enough at our health care system to maintain that margin, right? But a lot of healthcare systems did not maintain. And so even though there's a big nest of philanthropy that the team there has, the job all of a sudden became too much for Brian. And he said, no, I'm not going to do it anymore. And he's going to go back to his lab and do something different, more focused. It was really rocking our world that news.

I know you've heard about this, is there's trouble up there in Boston. If you remember, lots of the healthcare systems, Dana Farber, Mass General,   and the Brigham were all working together. Well, they decided about a year ago to have a divorce. And so, they're splitting up as general and Dana Farber, but it's interesting because then all going to go partner with different folks. So, they're getting a divorce and then kind of remarrying,   in new structure. And, and you know what, this was really a split over is that one of the institutions wanted their own cancer building in the hospital. Not like we have here at Georgetown, for example, where it's all over the place. They wanted their own freestanding building. A hard thing to do in the middle of a busy city. So, they got a divorce over what they thought should be the most appropriate cancer care out there.

[00:02:37]

This transcript has been edited for clarity.