SFU's new medical school gets $40M gift, largest in university history
Nature's Path founders donate transformative funding as Surrey campus prepares to welcome first students this August.
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Simon Fraser University's new medical school has received the largest donation in the university's history—a $40 million gift from Ratana and Arran Stephens, the co-founders of Nature's Path Organic Foods.
The school, which will be named the SFU Stephens Family School of Medicine, opens this August in Surrey and marks the first entirely new medical school in Western Canada in nearly six decades.
"This visionary gift is transformative for SFU's new school of medicine as we prepare to welcome our first students in August 2026," SFU president Joy Johnson said in a statement.
The Stephens family has been leaders in the global organic food movement since founding Nature's Path in 1985. They've also built Que Pasa Organic Tortilla Chips, Anita's Organic Mill, and Love Child Organics. In a statement, they said the school emerged as "the most important change-maker of our time" as they considered where their philanthropy could make the deepest difference.
The first cohort will have 48 students, growing to 120 annually by 2035. The donation will support student training, research, innovation, and critical infrastructure—helping the school meet an urgent need for physicians across B.C.'s urban, rural, remote, and Indigenous communities.
This gift signals a major commitment to health innovation in the province at a moment when physician shortages loom.