New AGH cancer institute, academic center to add jobs

Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network leaders showed off plans for their next big production Wednesday — a 90,000-square-foot, $80 million cancer institute and academic center that will front Allegheny General Hospital’s campus on the North Side.

The AHN Cancer Institute Academic Center — scheduled to open late next year — will be the centerpiece in the health system’s promised $225 million investment in cancer care, developing new technologies and therapies for treating cancer in collaboration with colleagues at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center in Baltimore and Penn State. Its opening will coincide with the pending end of Highmark’s in-network contractual relationship with UPMC and the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside.

In remarks before a packed auditorium at AGH on Wednesday, Highmark Health president and CEO David Holmberg described the center as a hub for research and new therapies while emphasizing that the goal remains “to bring health care close to home” through AHN’s network of more than 50 regional cancer clinics.

At present, six new community cancer centers are planned for Monroeville, Beaver County, Butler County and Erie, plus two locations still to be determined.

“We call this ‘Getting health care right,’” Mr. Holmberg said.

The North Side academic center will have four stories, two of them below ground, with its blue-faceted glass exterior facing East North Avenue, adjacent to the AGH main entrance. It will be the first major facility expansion at the North Side campus in more than 20 years.

Once open, the center will hire about 30 additional staff, including oncologists and patient access specialists, with an additional 200 employees overall hired as AHN expands its cancer care services.

Mr. Holmberg said 84,000 new cases of cancer were diagnosed among Pennsylvanians last year, but with improved treatments the number of cancer survivors nationwide is expected to grow from the current 15.5 million to more than 20 million by 2026, underscoring the importance of ongoing research and innovation to find new and better treatments.

Where cancer was once considered a death sentence, he said, “in some respects cancer is becoming a chronic disease” that can be managed over many years.

Highmark Health/AHN/ikm Inc. An artist rendering of Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network’s $80 million Cancer Institute Academic Center, part of the health system’s $225 million investment in cancer care.

Nate Guidry/Post-Gazette David Holmberg, president and CEO of Highmark Health, addresses the audience during the virtual unveiling of the cancer institute.

Highmark Health/AHN/ikm Inc. A rendering of the exterior of Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network’s new Cancer Institute Academic Center on the North Side.