The University of Southern California has announced a $25 million endowment gift from Leonard D. Schaeffer for the USC Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.

Established in 2009 with a gift from Schaeffer — founding chair and former CEO of WellPoint, one of the nation's largest health insurance companies — and his wife, Pamela, the Schaeffer Center is jointly housed at the Price School of Public Policy and the School of Pharmacy. Led by renowned health economist Dana Goldman, the center has attracted more than $45 million in outside funding for research on policy solutions to controlling healthcare costs and improving patient outcomes.

Schaeffer has served as administrator of the Health Care Financing Administration, now the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and as assistant secretary for management and budget at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and currently is a senior advisor to TPG Capital, a private equity firm, in addition to holding the Judge Robert Maclay Widney professorship, an executive-in-residence position at USC.

"As health care assumes an increasingly prominent place in public policy discussions, the USC Schaeffer Center will play an even more central role, while offering a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective," said USC president C.L. Max Nikias. "The center brings together USC's schools of public policy and pharmacy, drawing on collaborative scholarship to address the most complex questions facing health care today."