$150 million gift from Rich and Nancy Kinder for new childhood cancer facility

A $150 million donation by Rich and Nancy Kinder’s foundation will fuel a new healthcare facility focused on combating childhood cancer as part of a joint venture between two of Houston’s largest hospitals — The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and Texas Children’s Hospital.

The new facility, set to be named the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center, will be built on the 6700 block of Main Street in the Texas Medical Center in Houston, right across from Texas Children’s.

“I think when you’re talking about the possibility of really curing childhood cancer, I don’t know anything that could be more important,” said Rich Kinder, chairman of the Kinder Foundation. “I can’t think of a better team than the combination of these two hospitals to spend money for a very good cause.”

The Texas Medical Center calls the gift “one of the largest philanthropic donations made to an American pediatric hospital ” and “one of the largest donations in the history of the medical complex,” according to a news release.

“This is absolutely something that will be transformational for children with cancer,” Debra F. Sukin, president and CEO of Texas Children’s, told Houston Public Media. “And so, while we have two brands coming together, which are well recognized in the world, (we are) really coming together to solve one problem, which is to eradicate cancer in children.”

Sukin said the donation is the most significant gift Texas Children’s has received in its seven-decade history.

According to a joint news release from both hospitals, the cancer center will launch in early 2026 and will include inpatient beds, ambulatory care, and research labs.

A sky bridge will connect Kinder Children’s to Texas Children’s Hospital.

The Texas Medical Center has acquired a hotel and parking lot on the location where the facility will be built.

Dr. Peter Pisters, the president of MD Anderson, told Houston Public Media that a “new company” will be run by a joint operating board “made up 50/50 of individuals from Texas Children’s Hospital and MD Anderson Cancer Center.

“We’re going to be able to do something that’s very, very different than anything that’s ever been done in the Texas Medical Center,” he later added.

In addition to creating more beds to treat children facing cancer, Pisters said Kinder Children’s will bolster research efforts for cures and treatments by creating an epicenter for pediatric oncology. It also will attract interest from pharmaceutical companies, he added.

“From the pharmaceutical industry perspective, pediatric cancer is a relatively small market,” Pisters said.

“What’s important for them is that we really bring together a large number of patients, that we can create gigantic clinical trials,” which would create “an amazing opportunity for drug discovery for children. That is what I see as the tremendous potential associated with building a program of this size and this scale.”

According to Texas Oncology, more than 1,700 people in the state aged 20 or younger are diagnosed with cancer every year — and an average of 200 die because of it.

Types of leukemias and nervous system cancers make up more than half of childhood cancers in the state.

That’s all the more reason investing in treatment options and research into childhood cancer is important, Sukin said.

“This will be a destination for all children with cancer,” she said. “What we fully expect is not only will we increase in terms of children from around the nation coming to the Kinder Children’s Cancer Center, but we envision from an international perspective, this will have a global impact.”

Rich Kinder also envisions the hospital being a place where children will want to be treated.

“You really need to separate children who are afflicted with cancer from adults and so having a whole special center which caters to them, we think it will have playgrounds and that kind of thing that will be friendly to a child who’s going through a terrible situation,” he said.