4 min read July 2023 — In an interview with Invest:, Patrick Hwu, president and CEO of Moffitt Cancer Center, spoke about the center’s dedication to advancing cancer treatment by focusing on immune response and intersection of fields such as engineering and biology. Hwu emphasized the growing demand for healthcare in the Tampa Bay area and fostering the development of biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
What have been some highlights from the last 12 months?
Our mission is to contribute to the prevention and cure of cancer. One way we do this is by providing our care to as many people as possible because cancer is very specialized and it is challenging to treat. It consists of thousands of different diseases and they all need to be treated in a specific way. We have found that our outcomes are all well above national averages. We want to treat more patients and expand our footprint in order to do so. At the end of the month, we are opening a brand new hospital with 19 state of the art operating rooms and more than 100 inpatient beds mainly for surgical procedures and radiation. Another highlight is our addition of new clinics. We are building the Moffitt SouthShore outpatient center in the Ruskin region to further expand our footprint. Patients want care closer to their homes and we want to accommodate that.
We are trying to give tomorrow’s patients better treatment than today to cut the death rate. Deaths are actually starting to plateau largely because of our advanced understanding of the body’s immune response to cancer. We want to continue bringing those numbers down. Speros FL is our new 775-acre global innovation center in Pasco County. Here we have a large 200,000-square-foot research building coming out of the ground, which will house some exciting programs like bioengineering. We are also building a state-of-the-art proton center and will have an outpatient center there as well.
How do these highlights for Moffitt speak to the state of the healthcare industry in Tampa Bay?
A lot of people are moving into the area and they are all going to need healthcare. Besides being a place for vacation and tourism, Tampa Bay is increasingly seen as a place to receive quality healthcare, and to establish biotech and pharmaceutical companies.
How do you see the Speros FL Pasco County global innovation center impacting the region?
Speros FL is an exciting project for us and it will help us in our mission to prevent and cure cancer. We are bringing the brightest minds in cancer research and care, biotech and innovation to the area to create a medical city with the hope of accelerating scientific discovery and ultimately saving lives. There will be a clinic offering cancer therapies that will open in 2025. Our proton center will open in 2026 and we will also bring in companies to build a dry lab and office space to expand our AI and Digital Innovation department.
We are in negotiations to have a cold storage space for blood and stem cells. We’ll also have an education center because educating people about healthy lifestyles and the importance of screenings is vital.
What are the main factors driving patient experience?
Our survey results are sky-high in terms of patient satisfaction with our care. As research progresses, we are developing better therapies that are less toxic. Now, most of the care I give is outpatient, in the form of pills and infusions and is much less toxic than prior therapies.
What are some of the challenges you are dealing with?
Available workforce is the biggest challenge for us. For example, when you get an X-ray, it’s not the doctor doing the X-ray, it’s a technologist. It’s these types of skilled individuals that are needed. We also need plumbers and the like to manage and care for our buildings. What we have done to mitigate this challenge is work with colleges throughout the state and provide scholarships for nurses, such as for nursing graduates from the University of South Florida. In addition, Hillsborough Community College sees 45,000 students every year, and they have an X-ray technology program. The reason I gave the commencement speech there this year was to expose them to the center and let the students know how much they are needed as part of the next generation of the workforce. We are also going to import talent from elsewhere, but there is plenty of talent in Tampa Bay that we can educate and retain.
What is your outlook for Moffitt over the next few years?
I have a bullish outlook. There is a lot of growth and need for care like ours. We are going to expand our footprint and research and diversify our revenue stream. By being more entrepreneurial, we can streamline the FDA approval process, get novel therapies to patients more quickly, and ultimately save more lives. We have to bring in business, biotech and big pharma to work with us. Diversifying our revenue streams will help us reach more of the population and provide Moffitt care to more patients in more neighborhoods.
For more information, visit:
