$50 million latest gift to cancer center follows $50 million donation from Jane and Daniel Och and $125 million gift from Ken Griffin- gives impetus to $6 billion campaign goal
At Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, the hum of discovery is constant.
Behind the gleaming laboratories and serene patient spaces, there is an invisible current of generosity that powers everything—every breakthrough, every act of care, every hope that tomorrow will be better than today.
In recent months, that current has surged again, carrying with it a wave of extraordinary philanthropy that is quietly rewriting the future of cancer medicine.
The center received yet another $50 million gift, but the donor wishes to remain anonymous.
Recently, Jane and Daniel Och, known for their deep commitment to causes that transform lives, have stepped forward with yet another breathtaking gift: $50 million to strengthen MSK’s mission of ending cancer for life.
The couple, whose name already graces some of the most forward-looking projects in the institution’s history, symbolizes a philanthropy that is at once visionary and profoundly human.
They understand, in a way few do, that to build spaces of healing and discovery is to give patients not only medicine, but dignity and hope.
Their generosity is already imprinted on the Kenneth C. Griffin Pavilion, the next great chapter in MSK’s storied history.
The Pavilion, rising on York Avenue, is more than a building; it is a promise. With its light-filled corridors, advanced robotics, digital innovations, and intimate design, it aims to change the very texture of patient care. In recognition of the Ochs’ transformational role, its soaring lobby will carry their name—a threshold through which countless patients will step into healing.
For families arriving in moments of fear and uncertainty, the Jane and Daniel Och Lobby will signal something profound: you are not alone; the very walls around you were built by compassion.
Kenneth Griffin, whose name the Pavilion bears, is another towering figure in this story of generosity.
His $125 million gift to MSK represents one of the largest single donations in the institution’s history, a gesture of breathtaking scale.
Griffin, like the Ochs, is acutely aware that cancer touches every family, every community, and that only through bold investment can science stay ahead of the disease. Together, their contributions are not just financing bricks and mortar—they are underwriting revolutions in care, creating an environment where the most advanced treatments will feel humane, personal, and filled with light.
And they are not alone. In recent years, MSK has been the beneficiary of a chorus of extraordinary givers.
The Starr Foundation, whose $50 million gift to the Sloan Kettering Institute bolstered discovery science, affirmed the belief that answers to cancer’s deepest riddles still lie ahead.
Mike and Maria Repole, through their Nonna’s Garden Foundation, also gave $50 million, honoring family while anchoring a powerful initiative for patients and research.
These names, etched into the institution’s history, each represent more than wealth—they represent faith. Faith in science, in care, in the courage of patients, and in the relentless pursuit of a cure.
Yet what makes the Ochs’ latest gift particularly stirring is its anonymity.
Unlike the Pavilion’s named spaces, this new $50 million contribution carries no public marker, no recognition, no unveiling.
It is, in its essence, an act of pure generosity—given not for legacy, but for life itself. There is something deeply moving about that choice.
It suggests that for the Ochs, the true reward is not in the honorifics, but in the quiet knowledge that their gift will ripple outward in ways even they may never fully see: a treatment breakthrough in a lab, a patient comforted at bedside, a family restored to hope.
Taken together, these acts of philanthropy form a symphony—one that is as vital to MSK’s mission as the research microscopes and the surgical instruments. They remind us that in the fight against cancer, science and generosity are inseparable. The brilliance of discovery requires the boldness of giving, and the two entwined create progress that neither could achieve alone.
As Memorial Sloan Kettering pursues its $6 billion campaign, “Leading Science. Changing Lives.,” these monumental gifts from Griffin, the Ochs, and other benefactors are shaping not just the institution, but the entire field of cancer care. They are helping MSK reimagine what a hospital can be, what research can achieve, and most importantly, what patients can hope for.
In the end, it is not just about numbers—$50 million here, $125 million there—it is about the lives these gifts will touch.
And in that sense, every patient who steps through the Och Lobby, every researcher who makes a discovery with Griffin Pavilion resources, every family who hears the words “no evidence of disease” will be, in a quiet way, part of the legacy of these extraordinary donors.
Philanthropy at this scale is more than charity; it is vision, compassion, and courage made real. It is a testament to what happens when those with resources place them in the service of humanity’s most urgent challenge.
For MSK, it means the future is not only brighter—it is within reach.