Texas cancer research agency CEO to exit

After more a decade at the helm of the Cancer Prevention & Research Institute of Texas, the man credited with bringing the agency back from the brink of death is leaving.

Wayne Roberts will depart this summer, he announced during a CPRIT Oversight Committee meeting Wednesday. Though he’s not retiring, he said he does not yet have a next destination but will take time to travel and throw the ball to his dogs.

“His long-standing commitment to the cause of cancer will be felt for generations. During his tenure, CPRIT has become the second-largest cancer research funding entity in the United States,” said Oversight Committee Chair Dr. David Cummings. “Simply put, CPRIT would not be what it is today without the leadership of Wayne Roberts.”

CPRIT is a massive scientific and financial undertaking created by the Texas Legislature and approved by a statewide vote in 2007. It was given $3 billion to divvy up between academic researchers and burgeoning companies that were fighting cancer, a number that doubled to a total of $6 billion in 2019.

In the years since its founding, the CPRIT team recruited more than 300 researchers to the Lone Star State, supported the establishment, expansion or relocation of more than 60 companies and supported 9.4 million prevention services across all Texas counties.

When Roberts took over as CEO, however, the organization’s future was unclear.

Roberts agreed to join the cancer-fighting agency on an interim basis in late 2012 after it was revealed to have granted funding without proper review.

Roberts was there as a fixer, doing a favor for government leaders who had come to know him through his multidecade career as a Texas bureaucrat. He worked under former Govs. Rick Perry and George W. Bush, as well as former Lt. Gov. Bob Bullock.

Roberts relied on the training he got during his time at the Governor’s Office of Budget and Planning as CPRIT needed to provide information frankly and exactly as the legislators needed it.

“This was a big project that the Legislature and the governor wanted to have succeed, and here it was blowing up,” Roberts said. “So really, it wasn’t that hard. It was just to show them that the agency had a commitment to following the rules and the process.”

Near the end of March 2013, Roberts knew he had done his job of calming the legislative waters. He came home and told his wife that “the shrieking had stopped.”

But he couldn’t leave CPRIT, at least not yet.

“The mission of CPRIT gets under your skin, it wraps around your heart. It’s unlike my other career stops,” Roberts said. “I’ve been very fortunate to have nothing but great bosses. But you don’t fall in love with the governor’s office or the lieutenant governor’s office or a state budget agency like you do with an agency with the mission of CPRIT.”

In the last decade, Roberts and his staff have granted more than $3 billion to cancer research and prevention efforts, including almost $100 million in grants awarded Wednesday. He intended to step down as CEO two years ago, but that plan was interrupted by a race to bring the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health to Texas.

Roberts and a statewide team of collaborators brought a blue administration’s brainchild to a red state known for its evocative politics. They got multiple major cities to partner and present Texas as one, ultimately landing one of the biotech agency’s three headquarters in 2023. Roberts called the

ARPA-H win one of the highlights of his career.

Wednesday was an emotional roller coaster, Roberts said. He will remain as CEO until June 30.

“I have problems doing sentimentality. And I knew it was going to be tough, making my comments to the Oversight Committee, which were brief,” Roberts said. “Leaving CPRIT is difficult, but it’s time. It’s time.”