St. Jude investing $100 million-plus to expand global reach

Tom Charlier | Memphis Commercial Appeal

Show Caption Hide Caption St Jude Parents Tasha Ives shares the story of her daughter's last day after battling cancer.

Having already helped make childhood cancer survivable in the U.S. and other developed countries, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital took aim Thursday at the rest of the world.

The Memphis-based institution announced a $100 million-plus initiative to expand access to quality care for kids in low- and middle-income countries — places like Nicaragua, Jordan and the Philippines — where more than 80 percent of the world's pediatric cases occur and where death rates remain roughly what they were in the U.S. when St. Jude was founded 56 years ago.

St. Jude Global, described by hospital officials as a "unique, comprehensive initiative," is being launched with a 10-year goal of reaching 30 percent of the world's kids afflicted with cancer and other life-threatening diseases, compared to the mere 3 percent accessible to the institution today.

The initiative is especially important, according to St. Jude, because pediatric cancer rates continue to rise throughout much of the world as more and more kids survive infancy. In contrast to the U.S. and other affluent countries, where at least four out of five children who get cancer survive, the disease remains a virtual death sentence in poorer nations.

The initiative builds on St. Jude's 25-year-old International Outreach Program, which relied on direct partnerships with hospitals in other nations. Instead of just delivering care, however, St. Jude now will train clinical personnel to treat cancer worldwide, share its research and expertise with them and build regional networks as part of a global health system to save kids.

Dr. James R. Downing, St. Jude's president and CEO, said the global effort is consistent with founder Danny Thomas' dream that no child should die in the dawn of life.

“Despite our ability to cure these diseases, in low- and middle-income countries around the globe, the vast majority of children die of their disease. We must address this gap," Downing said during a ceremony announcing the initiative.

"It is our responsibility to do this, to work on this. We like to look across this campus, and we like to ask, 'If not for St. Jude, who?'"

Downing said St. Jude leaders believe the institution is "is better positioned than anybody" to attack pediatric cancer worldwide.

St. Jude laid the foundation for the new initiative two years ago by establishing the Department of Global Pediatric Medicine to accelerate its efforts overseas. Dr. Carlos Rodriguez-Galindo, executive vice president and chair of the department, said the hospital can draw on its quarter-century of international experience as it takes on pediatric cancer at a global level.

Even in turbulent areas such as the Middle East, St Jude and its partners in the initiative will employ lessons learned from the successful treatment of hundreds of cancer-stricken child refugees from the Syrian civil war, hospital officials say.

The global initiative represents the "ultimate challenge," Rodriguez-Galindo said during Thursday's event. "This is the new frontier, and we are ready."

Reach Tom Charlier at thomas.charlier@commercialappeal.com or 901-529-2572 and on Twitter at @thomasrcharlier.