How a Quiet Family of Donors is Helping to Transform Cancer Care for Some Californians

Reticent to speak publicly about their giving, the Chao family of Orange County, California, have long been quiet but leading donors in the region, with a big focus on cancer care and treatment. And now, with a new $20 million gift to the University of California, Irvine Health, the four Chao siblings and their spouses will continue that support by helping to build a new cancer care facility for one of the area’s most important healthcare institutions.

The money will help UCI Health build a new $1.2 billion medical center adjacent to the University of California, Irvine, campus, which will be named the Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and Ambulatory Care. The new in- and outpatient center will help UCI Health deliver cancer care and treatments for citizens in that section of the county and to conduct clinical research.

Previous major giving by the Chao family to UCI Health catalyzed the building of UCI’s Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center in Orange, a city in northern Orange County where UCI Health had focused its cancer care facilities. The center in the city of Orange is the only National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center based in Orange County. And yes, the people of Orange County do appear to be very fond of naming places Orange, but the geography is part of the story here.

Situated south of Los Angeles, Orange County is home to more than 3.1 million people, making it more populous than 20 U.S. states. But accessing cancer treatment in the county was sufficiently difficult that many residents in the greater Irvine area had to leave the region to get the care they needed, Chad Lefteris, CEO of UCI Health told Inside Philanthropy.

Some patients in the southern part of the region traveled for miles across Orange County, or even south to San Diego. For those who haven’t experienced Southern California traffic and freeways, the bad reputation is deserved: On a good day, it’s a mess—and is definitely not something you need when you’re going through cancer treatment.

But improving and expanding access to care is about a lot more than saving people from unpleasant freeway traffic, said Lefteris. It also gets new patients in front of doctors sooner, and that can make a big difference. “As we’re able to diagnose people sooner with cancer, that means we have different pathways to treatment, and greater survival and better outcomes,” he said. “The Chaos take a very broad view of expanding care to the citizens of Orange County—they want to cast the widest possible net to have the greatest impact.”

According to UCI Health, the health-related philanthropy of the four Chao siblings appears to be a natural extension of their professional and personal experience. For example, after coming to the U.S. from Taiwan to attend college, Allen Chao worked at pharma company G.D. Searle, before founding his own company, Watson Pharmaceuticals, in 1984. By the time Allen and his co-founder and brother-in-law David Hsia retired in 2008, Watson was a $3 billion firm. And family patriarch H.H. Chao, who came to California in the 1970s, had previously owned a generic drug company in Taiwan. Three others in the family have medical degrees. And in 1999, Allen Chao developed stomach cancer and was successfully treated by a UCI Health doctor, no doubt deepening his understanding of the medical and personal challenges that cancer patients face.

So far, three generations of the Chao family have supported UCI Health’s cancer mission, giving a total of about $50 million. It’s an impressive testament to the kind of impact a donor family can make when they focus on a cause that holds personal importance to them in a region they care about.

At the same time, it is a little scary to think that a single family’s largesse can be so crucial to such an important aspect of medicine as cancer treatment and care. In a country as wealthy as the United States, such facilities shouldn’t have to rely on philanthropy nearly as much as they so often do, just as Americans shouldn’t need to struggle as much as they often do to get the care they need. After all, not every county has a family like the Chaos looking out for their needs.

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