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Highmark Health, AHN unveil plans for $80 million cancer academic center

PITTSBURGH — Highmark Health and the Allegheny Health Network unveiled plans for a new $80 million cancer center Wednesday.

PHOTOS: AHN Cancer Institute Academic Center at AGH

Company officials and community leaders got their first look at what the new Cancer Institute Academic Center at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side will look like.

"We need to have an integration and research and education cancer hub to connect our entire cancer program," said Dr. David Parda, chair of the AHN Cancer Institute.

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Expected to open in 2019, the academic center will serve as a hub for the hospital network’s 50 cancer clinics. It will focus on cancer research, clinical trials and education for the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute.

AHN will recruit more than 200 oncology professionals over the next two years, including physicians and other specialists.

The center is part of the $225 million investment in cancer care that Highmark and AHN announced last year, and the latest step in an arms race of sorts in Pittsburgh's medical community.

In October, AHN announced plans to invest more than $1 billion in expansions and new facilities, including neighborhood hospitals in Westmoreland county and a new facility in Wexford.

Not to be outdone, UPMC announced its own $2 billion plan in November to build three digitally based specialty hospitals in the region.

"When I hear about the billions of dollars that our hospital systems are spending, it reminds me of how far we've come," said Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto said Wednesday. "Chasing Amazon is something that comes about once in 100 years. We put attention to it, but it's not the daily attention we do helping the businesses that are presently here."

 

Cox Media Group

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