Alice Walton talks about why she’s funding an Arkansas hospital. A billionaire biotech entrepreneur is up against a physician in the Ohio governor’s race. These stories and more in this week’s InnovationRx newsletter. To get it in your inbox, subscribe here.

For the past seven years, Alice Walton, the only daughter of Walmart founder Sam Walton, has been planning a massive health complex, promising $350 million from her foundation for the 250-bed hospital and state-of-the-art cancer center in Bentonville, Arkansas. Last Thursday, it broke ground, with 76-year-old Walton, who is worth $118 billion, holding court in a bright pink jacket with her white hair pulled back in a bun.

The goal of the new health center: To improve access to care and outcomes in northwest Arkansas and throughout the state, with specialty care.

“Arkansas faces some of the nation’s greatest health challenges, with outcomes that regularly rank among the lowest in the country,” Walton tells Forbes by email. She referenced a 2019 study showing that residents in the northwest of the state spend nearly $1 billion annually to access specialty care elsewhere. “Think about what that means for someone with a heart condition or a cancer diagnosis. They’re leaving their home, family, and support system to receive critical care at one of the most difficult times in their lives.”

When Walton wants something done in Arkansas, it gets done. In 2005, she founded the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art as a non-profit charitable organization—a world-class museum tucked away in Bentonville. In 2025, she welcomed the inaugural class of 48 four-year MD students to her new Alice L. Walton School of Medicine there. And now this: The complex, known as the AWSOM Whole Health Campus, built in partnership........

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