UI Health Care campaign to raise $500 million for research, education

IOWA CITY - A $500 million fundraising campaign for University of Iowa Health Care will advance research, education and patient care in key areas, including cancer, aging, neuroscience and cardiovascular, UI officials said in publicly announcing the campaign Friday.

“Iowa First: Our Campaign for Breakthrough Medicine,” was launched in the quiet phase in July 2006, and more than $314 million has been raised, officials said. A date of June 30, 2013 was set to raise the remainder of the $500 million goal.

The campaign is all about patient care, medical research and education, UI President Sally Mason said.

“All of us look forward to the breakthroughs the campaign will help bring to reality,” Mason said.

The key areas targeted for investment through the campaign are: cancer treatment and research; cardiovascular health; aging and aging-related diseases; children's health through UI Children's Hospital; eye diseases, particularly conditions leading to blindness; neuroscience, including diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's; new frontiers for high-risk, high-yield research; and medical education.

The areas were chosen because they are strengths of UI Hospitals and Clinics and the Carver College of Medicine, and because they are issues that affect the population, officials said.

“They are areas of focus to human diseases and to Iowans,” Paul Rothman, Carver College of Medicine dean, said. “We're focusing on improving areas where we have strength.”

There are numerous naming opportunities available through the Iowa First campaign, officials said, including a $50 million asking to name the planned new Children's Hospital tower. Other naming opportunities would support research programs, endowed faculty chairs and endowed scholarships.

Of the $500 million goal, $100 million will be raised for children's medicine – $50 million to support the new tower construction and $50 million for programs and research at the Children's Hospital.

UI alumni Jerre and Mary Joy Stead of Scottsdale, Ariz., contributed $10 million in support of children's medicine initiatives, and they will lead the volunteer committee that will help the UI Foundation with fundraising.

The Steads saw in this campaign a chance to support programs that will show measurable progress and advances in the future.

“We don't give money, we invest,” Jerre Stead said Friday.

The results of the campaign will improve the lives of generations of Iowans and hospital patients, Bob Verhille, vice chairman of the UI Foundation board of directors, said.

“We could not have a better product or a more compelling case to bring to prospective contributors,” he said.

Along with the $10 million from the Steads, major gifts to the Iowa First campaign so far include:

• $26.4 million from John and Mary Pappajohn of Des Moines for the John and Mary Pappajohn Biomedical Discovery Building and the Pappajohn Biomedical Institute.
• $25 million from The Fraternal Order of Eagles for The Fraternal Order of Eagles Diabetes Research Center at the UI.
• $6 million from the late Marvin Pomerantz and his wife, Rose Lee, of Des Moines for endowed faculty positions.