Patients and relatives joined UAMS faculty and staff Monday at the UAMS Winthrop P. Rockefeller Cancer Institute for an announcement of a $10 million gift to aid myeloma patients.
The $10 million contribution from Celgene Corp. will create The Bart Barlogie Center for Molecular Diagnostics to benefit patients with multiple myeloma. The gift will also fund the establishment of the Celgene Distinguished Endowed Chair in Molecular Therapeutics.
Celgene Corp. is a New Jersey based biopharmaceutical company that focuses on therapy and treatment for cancer and inflammatory diseases through gene and protein regulation.
Five million dollars of the gift with go to The Bart Barlogie Center for Molecular Diagnostics.
“That gift represents expendable funds, dollars that can be spent in real time for the purpose of advancing the work of the center,” UAMS Chancellor Dan Rahn said.
The other half will fund the creation of Celgene Distinguished Endowed Chair in Molecular Therapeutics.
“Those funds are invested, and it’s the interest on those funds that are expendable, so those funds are available in perpetuity,” Rahn said.
The center will be named for Barlogie, who led the UAMS myeloma program from its founding in 1989 until 2014, when he stepped down as the director to focus on clinical care and research.
“I wish to thank all the patients and their relatives who did not make it. Just before we started here one patient passed,” Barlogie said. “And we just have to remember what got us here and remember to be — to want to serve. It’s all about serving."
The partnership between the UAMS Myeloma Institute and Celgene will focus on how genetic signals affect each patient's disease, which will help identify appropriate drug therapies for a cure, Myeloma Institute Director Gareth Morgan said. Multiple myeloma is a cancer affecting plasma cells.
The myeloma program at UAMS has seen more than 11,000 patients from every state and more than 50 foreign countries, as well as performed more than 9,000 peripheral blood stem cell transplants, UAMS said in a news release.