For PennMed:
A $600 Million Capital Campaign

The University of Pennsylvania Medical Center and Health System has announced a long-term capital campaign of $600 million with the theme "Campaign for the Future of Medicine: Learning, Discovery, Prevention, Cure." According to Dean William N. Kelley, who is CEO of the Medical Center and Health System, it is the largest announced capital campaign for a major academic health center in the U.S.

"This campaign will determine our ability as a leading academic health center to maintain and enhance our role and stature in academic medicine, both nationally and worldwide," Dr. Kelley said. "The funds raised from now through the end of the century will allow us to continue to advance the institution's 230-year mission for excellence in the delivery of health care by sustaining the high level of teaching standards for which our medical school is known, our scientists who perform groundbreaking medical research, and our learned clinicians who attend to their patients' well-being."

Almost half the goal--$296.8 million--had been raised by the time its launching had been announced September 15.

Funds are to be used toward all three parts of PennMed's three- tiered mission of education, research and patient care, the announcement said, with priorities including the 21st Century Endowed Scholars fund, endowment for faculty support, and funds to support patient care programs in the clinical areas.

Half the goal--$300 million--has specifically been earmarked for research. "Never has research held so much promise for the treatment of disease," said Dr. Kelley. "Never have we had the wellspring of intelligence we enjoy today, intelligence focused both on basic research and on translating the findings of that research into bedside treatment. Never have we had the sophisticated technology that enables our investigators to capitalize on their imagination and turn concept into experiment, experiment into discovery, and discovery into patient cure and care."