Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center

The center grew out of the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation, founded in 1956 by William B. Hutchinson (1909–1997). The Foundation was dedicated to the study of heart surgery, cancer, and diseases of the endocrine system. Hutchinson's younger brother Fred (1919–1964) was a major league pitcher and manager who died of lung cancer at age 45. The next year, William Hutchinson established the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center as a division of the Pacific Northwest Research Foundation.

In 1972, with the help of Senator Warren G. Magnuson, PNRF received federal funding under the National Cancer Act of 1971 to create in Seattle one of the 15 new NCI-designated Cancer Centers aimed at conducting basic research called for under 1971 Act; the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center became independent 1972 and its building opened three years later in 1975.

The center was named an NCI-designated Comprehensive Cancer Center in 1976.

In 1998, the center formed the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance (SCCA), a separate nonprofit corporation, with University of Washington School of Medicine (UW Medicine), and Seattle Children's. This solidified the center's reach into clinical care and was essential for it retaining its NCI comprehensive center designation; the designation was extended to the center's consortium including the SCCA in 2003. SCCA's outpatient clinic first opened in January 2001.

In 2001, The Seattle Times published a series of articles alleging that investigators at the center (including the center's co-founder E. Donnall Thomas) were conducting unethical clinical studies on cancer patients. The paper alleged that in two cancer studies conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s, patients were not informed about all the risks of the study, nor about the study doctors' financial interest in study outcome. The paper also alleged that this financial interest may have contributed to the doctors' failure to halt the studies despite evidence that patients were dying sooner and more frequently than expected. In response, the center formed a panel of independent experts to review its existing research practices, leading to adoption of new conflict-of-interest rules.

In 2010 Lawrence Corey was appointed as the fourth President, following the retirement of Lee Hartwell. He was followed by

Gary Gilliland in 2015 as president, who led the institute until 2020. Under his leadership the center announced that it would expand into the former Lake Union steam plant, which previously housed ZymoGenetics. The move was completed in October 2020. In February 2020, Thomas J. Lynch Jr. took over as director.

The year 2014 saw the organization adopt its longtime local nickname, "Fred Hutch", as its official name as part of a rebranding.