Doug Meijer and the Meijer Foundation have given $19.5 million to Michigan State University for a new medical innovation facility for its College of Human Medicine in downtown Grand Rapids.

The gift from Meijer, former co-chairman of grocer Meijer Inc., and the Grand Rapids-based Meijer Foundation, will be used to create a "theranostics" clinic that includes a radiopharmacy in a planned medical innovation building at MSU's Grand Rapids Innovation Park, according to a news release.

Theranostics is a new field of medicine that integrates therapeutics and diagnostics.

The project will build "one of the world's most advanced cyclotron-equipped radiopharmacies," focused on making an array of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceutical drugs for clinical and research purposes, the release said.

"The initiative supported by this generous gift could have a tremendous impact on health care by helping detect disease sooner, offering more effective and less invasive treatments, eliminating unnecessary procedures, reducing side effects and increasing time in remission," MSU President Samuel L. Stanley Jr. said in a release. "This innovative partnership between MSU, the western Michigan community and business participants could ultimately improve patients' quality of life and help cut health care costs. It is this type of global impact that MSU strives to accomplish, and with generous gifts like this, we can do just that."

The building will be named Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Center in honor of Meijer, a cancer survivor and advocate, the release said.

A groundbreaking for the Doug Meijer Medical Innovation Center, at Michigan Street and Ottawa Avenue, is scheduled for Nov. 18 at the Grand Rapids Innovation Park. The building is expected to open in late 2021, the release said.

"The Meijer Family has always been passionate about health care, and I am thankful to have the ability to carry that passion forward," Meijer said in a release. "This new medical innovation building will help save lives and improve the quality of life for many people through remarkable cancer-fighting technology. Patients will no longer have to travel overseas to receive needed treatment. I am living proof this technology works."

In June, the East Lansing-based school signed long-term lease with Health Innovation Partners, a real estate development joint venture among Chicago-based MB Real Estate, Walsh Construction/Walsh Investors in Chicago and Grand Rapids-based Rockford Construction to develop the 200,000-square-foot center with a 600-car parking structure.