First lady Casey DeSantis and Gov. Ron DeSantis speak about state funding for cancer research Wednesday, July 23, 2025, at Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville. | Mike Mendenhall, Jacksonville Today
Published on July 23, 2025 at 3:33 pm
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Gov. Ron DeSantis and first lady Casey DeSantis touted funding to expand and accelerate pediatric cancer research and new treatments Wednesday, during a stop at Wolfson Children’s Hospital in Jacksonville.
Meeting with other state and local elected and hospital officials, the governor and first lady announced $30 million in funding for the Cancer Connect Collaborative approved in Florida’s 2025-26 state budget.
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DeSantis said in a news conference at Wolfson that the collaborative will use the new state dollars to focus on pediatric cancer outcomes over the next five years, bolstering a partnership between Wolfson, Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg, Nicklaus Children’s Hospital in Miami and Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando.
The collaborative hopes to make the pediatric cancer hospitals eligible for multiyear grants to expand clinical trials, improve treatment protocols and “advance real-world cures,” DeSantis said.
In total, this year’s state budget appropriates $265.4 million toward cancer research programs and organizations including $127.5 million for the Casey DeSantis Cancer Research Program to fund competitive grants and $60 million for the Florida Cancer Innovation Fund to further bolster cancer research and care.
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The governor told the crowd at Wolfson that the investment would make Florida a national target for investment into cancer research.
“And this program has served as the backbone of the state’s innovation efforts. We don’t want to just support isolated projects. We want to build an integrated statewide approach that drives long-term progress,” DeSantis said.
Officials expect the program to also boost enrollment in those trails and allow pediatric hospitals and community clinics to pool resources to expand education for family and health care providers, Shevaun Harris, secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, said Wednesday.
Baptist Health President and CEO Michael Mayo said he expects the cancer research initiatives to attract “the world’s top talent” to practice pediatric cancer medicine in Florida.
Casey DeSantis, who led efforts to establish the collaborative, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2021 and declared cancer free in March 2022.
“We’re at war with cancer. We don’t want to wait for a fiscal year to end to then do all these grants. Let’s go,” Casey DeSantis said. “If somebody knows that they have a good idea and they want to put gas on that brush fire to try make an impact, you should get that funding quickly.”
