UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center just locked in a fresh five-year renewal of its National Cancer Institute core grant, a roughly $25 million boost that quietly keeps much of the region’s cancer operation running. Leadership says the money will help speed up clinical-trial activation, expand infusion capacity and bankroll new physician hires across Moores’ campuses.
Federal award records list the grant under P30CA023100, with a 2026 competing-continuation action for $4,989,141, a figure that pencils out to about $25 million over five years, and note that UC San Diego has received this line of support continuously since 1978, per HHS award records. That federal stream is the backbone of Moores’ infrastructure funding and research cores.
What the money pays for
Moores is the region’s only National Cancer Institute-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center, and the Cancer Center Support Grant primarily pays for shared resources: genomics, biostatistics, tissue repositories, protocol review and other cores that support lab and clinical research. As outlined by Moores Cancer Center, that behind-the-scenes setup is what lets investigators turn lab discoveries into treatments and run patient-facing trials without everything grinding to a halt.
Faster trials, more patients
The center points to some hard numbers to show what that core funding has already done: time to activate a new clinical trial dropped from 224 days in 2018 to about 86.5 days as of April 2025, and accruals to interventional trials jumped roughly 250%, according to The San Diego Union-Tribune. The same report notes that the core grant covers about 25% of the center’s operating costs, and that roughly 40% of clinical-trial offerings are based in the San Diego region.
Hillcrest expansion widens access
Some of the capacity push is brick-and-mortar. UC San Diego Health opened the McGrath Outpatient Pavilion at Hillcrest in July 2025, bringing oncology clinics, an infusion clinic and advanced imaging into one spot. The pavilion is meant to complement Moores’ La Jolla campus and widen access to care across central and southern San Diego, UC San Diego Health reports.
Hiring and capacity goals
Hospital and center officials say the renewed core grant will also underwrite a hiring wave. The center expects about 17 new physicians to join its teams by the fall, and the breast health program is adding four medical oncologists and four advanced practice providers, per The San Diego Union-Tribune. Those hires are intended to cut bottlenecks, shore up clinical-trials staff and shrink the gap between diagnosis and treatment.
Why San Diego matters
For the region, the renewal keeps a long-standing federal investment alive, one that supports research training, community outreach and a steady pipeline of trials that pull patients into San Diego. As noted on the Moores Cancer Center, the center is one of the nation’s NCI-designated comprehensive cancer centers, and its federal core funding is central to local research and care capacity.
Officials say the five-year award does more than cover salaries and equipment. It is structured to keep more cutting-edge trials in San Diego, trim wait times for patients with urgent needs and accelerate the work that turns bench science into bedside options over the next several years. University leaders add that the renewal helps attract additional federal and philanthropic support that multiplies the center’s impact.
