HOUSTON, Texas – Two of Texas’s premier medical institutions announced the next part of their joint venture.
You may recall that in February, MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children’s Hospital announced they were combining forces to fight cancer.
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Now, the hospitals and the Kinder Foundation have announced that a new venture will take place under one roof and will henceforth be called the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center.
The new facility comes with a new website and logo, too.
The Kinder Foundation gave a transformative $150 million gift to create the nation’s largest cancer center focused exclusively on children and marking one of the largest philanthropic donations ever made to an American pediatric hospital.
“When we look at the two founding institutions and their capabilities, we see that these are very complementary and that together they can do something spectacular,” said Dr. Peter Pisters, president, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
Revolutionizing Pediatric Cancer Care
The new facility, to be located on Main Street in the Texas Medical Center and connected to Texas Children’s through a skybridge, represents a fundamental shift in how pediatric cancer care will be delivered in the region.
Dr. Will Parsons of Texas Children’s Hospital emphasized the strategic importance of the merger.
“Having two different institutions caring for these patients, literally across the street from one another, doesn’t logistically make sense,” he said. “A joint plan gives us an opportunity to synergize and make everything aligned in terms of resources, strategy, and figuring out the best way to care for these patients.”
Building on Combined Strengths
The collaboration capitalizes on each institution’s unique strengths.
“We’re already working with our MD Anderson colleagues to start to brainstorm this, to think about it. We’re very fortunate that the pediatric cancer field as well as the other field of pediatric blood disorders, is a very tight community in many ways. I mean, we collaborate with each other routinely across the country and across the world in terms of trials, in terms of developing new therapies, in terms of getting second opinions for patients from each other,” Dr. Parsons said.
Construction Timeline and Facility Plans
The new center will be built on a site currently occupied by a parking lot.
“We’ll be... hopefully breaking ground in about a year or maybe 18 months from now, once we’ve gone through the architect and design phases,” Pisters explained.
Program integration will begin before the physical facility is complete. Clinical programs will unify in early 2026, followed by the gradual combination of educational and research initiatives, according to Pisters.
Legacy of Philanthropy
The $150 million gift continues the Kinder Foundation’s significant impact on Houston’s landscape. Founded by Rich and Nancy Kinder in 1997, the foundation has distributed more than $621.4 million in grants through 2024, focusing on urban green space, education, and quality of life in the Houston area.
National Impact
The center aims to become a destination for pediatric cancer treatment nationwide.
“If you’re the parents of a child with a complicated cancer or blood disease anywhere in the United States or world, you should be thinking about whether you need to come to Houston to get evaluated,” Parsons said.
The gift will serve as the lead donation for a multi-year campaign to secure additional funding for the facility and breakthrough pediatric oncology research.
