One of the first items on Laurie Glimcher’s agenda after becoming CEO of the renowned Dana-Farber Cancer Institute was to build a freestanding cancer hospital in Boston.
The most obvious partner would be Mass General Brigham, the large, not-for-profit system that operates the Boston hospital where Dana-Farber’s doctors currently treat cancer patients. But after seven years of negotiations with MGB’s top brass — including about 30 meetings in the past 10 months alone — she said it became clear that they weren’t interested.
“It would have been easier if MGB would have said, ‘Yes, we can do that with you,’” Glimcher told The Boston Globe’s editorial board on Tuesday. “That would have been the easiest path. But they refused over and over and over again.”