UNMC pancreatic cancer center director tells Board of Regents administrative failures are undermining center, says patient care at risk

At the Aug. 14 Board of Regents meeting, Dr. Sunil Inghorani, a medical oncologist and the inaugural director of the Pancreatic Cancer Center of Excellence (PCCE) at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC), told the board that the center’s work “has been obstructed and at times undermined by questionable policies and disaffected individuals.”

Inghorani said the PCCE, funded by a combination of state appropriations and philanthropic support, has faced repeated administrative barriers that he says have impeded purchases of “state of the art technologies in mass spectrometry and spatial profiling” that the center views as essential for early detection research and development of new therapies. He said the center had “ample funds, compelling reasons, and promised autonomy to make such purchases” but that purchases were blocked.

Inghorani also told the regents the facility’s contracting and procurement practices have been problematic. He said facilities management had been awarding contracts “to the highest bidders, sometimes as much as 500% over the most competitive bid,” and asserted that marketing staff at Nebraska Medicine declined to advertise a multidisciplinary clinic the PCCE built because they did not recognize the board’s authority to designate centers of excellence. He added that such obstacles have led some outside companies and CEOs to refuse to work with the center because of administrative and cybersecurity concerns.

“The refusal by Nebraska Medicine marketing and communications department to advertise our unique multidisciplinary clinic ... and most seriously of all, allowing the unchecked actions of individuals motivated by personal animus and petty politics to threaten the quality of patient care,” Inghorani said, in remarks the regents recorded during the public-comment period.

Inghorani told the board he has raised these issues repeatedly in writing and in person with university and UNMC leadership without resolution and requested a meeting with the regents to review the concerns “in detail and hopefully resolve them.” The board did not take immediate action during the public-comment period; the meeting proceeded to the consent agenda afterward.

The Board of Regents’ public-comment rules were read at the start of the meeting; the board’s staff closed the public-comment period after Inghorani’s remarks and moved to the next agenda items.