Nicole McGraw, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia, received a delegation from UPMC
11 November 2025
Zagreb, Croatia — Nicole McGraw, U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Croatia, received a delegation from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) from Pittsburgh, currently visiting Croatia. On this occasion, she expressed full support for the implementation of the strategic project of establishing the UPMC Oncology Center in Zabok, which represents not only the largest American investment in the Croatian healthcare system, but also a direct “know how” transfer from the USA to Croatia, aimed at providing the best possible care to patients in Croatia. UPMC is a U.S. non-profit organization, with a huge global impact, whose mission is to deliver world-class healthcare to patients in their local communities.
The U.S. delegation included: Dr. Joel Nelson, Executive Vice President and Chief Clinical Officer of the UPMC Group and President of UPMC International; Elizabeth Wild, President of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Network; Stefan Ahlers, Director of UPMC International, Davor Babić, Director of UPMC Croatia, and Prof. Dr. Dragan Primorac, initiator of the project in Croatia.
University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) has invested more than 20 million dollars in the first phase establishment of the UPMC Hillman Oncology Center on the campus of the Zabok General Hospital and Croatian Veterans Hospital and offers comprehensive cancer treatment services, including PET-CT diagnostics, radiation oncology and internal oncology.
In the field of internal oncology, the UPMC Center offers personalized care within the framework of the system of antineoplastic treatment where the most modern therapeutic approaches will be combined, including chemotherapy, immunotherapy, targeted therapy and hormone therapy, all based on the latest medical evidence. The emphasis of the work of the UPMC Hillman Cancer Center Croatia is placed on the so-called precision oncology, especially multi-omics methods, including genetic analysis of tumor tissue, liquid biopsy, with the support of artificial intelligence, which significantly contributes to the optimization of treatment. In the area of nuclear medicine, patients have access to numerous diagnostic tests, including PET/CT, especially low-dose CT and diagnostic PET/CT, using artificial intelligence tools.
In the field of radiotherapy, the Center offers: stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) with Varian TrueBeam® HyperArc/stereotactic ablative radiotherapy (SBRT/SABR), image-guided radiotherapy (IGRT) with Varian TrueBeam® HyperSight technology, intensity modulated radiotherapy (IMRT), volumetric modulated arc therapy (VMAT) with Varian TrueBeam® technology RapidArc et al.
The Center’s founders emphasized that the principles of translational medicine and clinical research will play a key role in its operations, enabling patients to participate in cutting-edge clinical trials exploring new therapeutic possibilities. A focus on clinical studies will enable patients access to pioneering treatments that are not yet widely available in everyday clinical practice and the ability to apply new technologies in combination with careful monitoring and an individualized approach will enable the Center to provide the best possible oncology care to patients.
UPMC Hillman Cancer Center has a worldwide reputation for expertise in cancer-based treatment evidence, but also conducting numerous clinical trials, offering possibilities that were previously unavailable in many environments. Currently, 450 clinical trials are conducted at UPMC Hillman Cancer Centers, including those in the last phase of realization, which were supported by the American of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the NCI National Clinical Trials Network. The new Center in Croatia will further advance its core mission: advancing cancer treatment through clinical research, innovation and international collaboration, enabling top oncology care to become available to everyone.
The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) is one of the largest academic medical centers in the United States, with an annual budget of over $30 billion, and owns 40 hospitals and 75 cancer centers employing more than 100,000 people. UPMC is headquartered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (USA) and is academically and scientifically affiliated with the University of Pittsburgh, which has produced three Nobel Prize winners: Prof. Philip Hench, Prof. Paul Lauterbur and Wangari Maathai. Historically, UPMC has left a significant mark on the development of world medicine in several areas such as transplant surgery (Prof. Thomas E. Starzi is considered the “father of modern transplant surgery"), radiological diagnostics (the world's first PET/CT was developed at UPMC), sports medicine, etc. Over the past ten years, UPMC has invested more than a billion dollars in the development of biomedical sciences, while in the last few years alone it has invested more than 200 million dollars in the development of immunotherapy.