$10 million has been donated to the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston from Henri A. Termeer, the retired head of Genzyme Corp, The Boston Globe reported today.

The new center to be known as the ‘Henri and Belinda Termeer Center for Targeted Therapies’ will focus on drugs tailored to the genetic makeup of tumours, especially breast cancers, lung cancers, and leukaemias.

Targeted cancer therapies are drugs or other substances that block the growth and spread of cancer by interfering with specific molecules involved in tumour growth and progression. By focusing on molecular and cellular changes that are specific to cancer, targeted cancer therapies may be more effective than other types of treatment, including chemotherapy and radiotherapy, and less harmful to normal cells.

The center will be run by Prof. Jose Baselga, one of the world's leading cancer specialists, who was recruited from Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology in Barcelona last year to be chief of hematology-oncology at Mass. General. It will be part of the 25-year-old Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center, led by Dr. Daniel A. Haber.

"In the future, we're going to see cancers defined not only by their site of origin but by the molecular alternations that are the drivers of particular cancers,'' Baselga told The Globe.  

Mass. General is already among the most advanced hospitals in the world in testing personalized medicines. Over the past year alone, the number of clinical trials it sponsors using targeted therapies has roughly tripled. Such developments suggest doctors and scientists are taking the right approach with targeted medicines. Baselga however did caution that tumors eventually can develop resistance to the new drugs so researchers may have to understand genetics well enough to outwit the tumours with additional treatments or drug combinations.

Mass. General, the largest hospital in New England and the nation's largest research hospital, will use the Termeer donation to renovate space on the seventh floor of its Yawkey Center for Outpatient Care, where the Termeer Center will be located. "I hope this will help Massachusetts be recognized globally as the knowledge center in targeted medicines,'' Termeer, 65 told The Globe, "This is a global effort, but Massachusetts has the responsibility to lead, to use the talents and capabilities it has built over many years.''

Source: The Boston Globe