Talk about the season for giving! In Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center’s (MSK) 150-year history, the New York City cancer care facility has never received a gift like this. Billionaires Ken Griffin and David Geffen have pledged $400 million to MSK—the largest donation MSK has ever seen.

Griffin shared the announcement on ABC’s Good Morning America (GMA), where he was joined by MSK CEO Selwyn Vickers, MD, MSK doctors and nurses and two former patients who now work at the center. Watch the GMA segment at the top of this article or on YouTube.

????Yesterday MSK staff members were part of a special surprise on Good Morning America as we announced a landmark $400...

Posted by Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center on Wednesday, December 13, 2023

“All of us here dream of the day that we end cancer,” said Griffin, founder and CEO of the hedge fund Citadel, during the GMA segment. “I am certain that MSK will play an important role in ending cancer in our lifetime. But until that day, the team at MSK, the team that all of you are a part of, give the patients that are enduring cancer, hope, dignity and compassion in their care.”

Vickers called the donation “transformative” and said the funds will continually enhance treatment for MSK patients and better the lives of the center’s 20,000 faculty members during this “golden age of cancer care.”

“I personally want to thank Kevin for being here and David, if he’s watching, for allowing these resources to move toward what I think is a treasure in American health care,” Vickers said.

Griffin, 55, has a net worth of about $36.5 billion and in 2023 was named one of the United States’ Most Generous Givers by Forbes. Last year, after Griffin donated $300 million to Harvard, the university renamed the graduate school of arts and sciences the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences in the alumnus’s honor.

Geffen, 80, a renowned American music mogul, filmmaker and entrepreneur, has donated to various causes in his lifetime, including funding a school of medicine at the University of California Los Angeles. Geffen, who has a net worth of about $9.1 billion, intends to donate his entire wealth to charity, according to a Bloomberg article.

“I’m pleased to join my friend Ken Griffin in supporting the groundbreaking, patient-centered care at MSK,” Geffen said in an MSK press release. “It’s our sincere hope that this combined gift will inspire others and enable MSK to continue to build on its reputation as one of the top cancer care providers and research centers in the world.”

GMA anchor Robin Roberts, who has survived multiple cancers, was especially touched by the announcement and held back tears as she spoke about the donation.

Robins was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2007 and later announced she was in remission. Years later, Robins was diagnosed with a rare blood and bone marrow disease called myelodysplastic syndrome, which required a bone marrow transplant. She has been cancer-free since February 2012.

To honor her journey, Roberts created a fund, the Robin Roberts Fund for Cancer Survivorship Research, the goal of which is to support research to improve the quality of life for cancer survivors of all ages. This fund reflects Roberts’s character in that she is deeply devoted to ensuring that cancer survival rates increase.

“I hope you feel the emotion from everybody that is here. There’s nobody that hasn’t been impacted, both personally with family and friends—it’s impacted everybody,” she said.