Nashville humanitarian Phran Galante died of cancer. Now friends and family fight to give others 'more time'

Joe Galante can describe his wife in one word. 

"She was a connector," the former Sony Music Nashville chairman told The Tennessean.  

Many knew his spouse, Phran Galante, as a humanitarian, animal activist and music industry magnet in Nashville. She entered rooms with a blazing spirit — much like the flame-in-your-belly struck by her favorite drink, Fireball — and engulfed those around her with a contagious cheer. 

"She was happy when she engaged with people," Joe Galante said. "She showed up and people started to smile. You couldn't help it. She just made everybody happy." 

But illness cut Phran Galante's joy short. 

Doctors diagnosed her in 2016 with stage 4 lung cancer, a disease she fought for 3½ years with precision treatment from Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Sarah Cannon Cancer Center, said Joe Galante. 

She died Sept. 23, 2019, at age 64. 

But while under advanced treatment, Phran Galante still filled rooms with a vibrancy others admired. She spent days riding horses, caring for animals, raising cancer awareness and playing tennis — her favorite sport. 

For years before her death, Joe Galante said his wife maintained slices of "normal" due in-part to precision oral medicine that fought cancerous cells without subjecting her to hours of chemotherapy infusion treatment. 

Now friends and family want to ensure the treatment that helped Phran Galante live after her diagnosis pushes forward after her death. Those close to Phran Galante, including Joe Galante, country star Kenny Chesney and other music executives, donated an undisclosed amount to Vanderbilt for targeted cancer medicine research. 

Franklin-based Shalom Foundation administers this newly formed fund. 

"The oral chemo, to me, gave her life," said Joe Galante said. "If she had just gone on straight chemo, I don't think we would've made it a year. The more we can do to find out what these treatments can do and how we can make them more effective ... you can extend life.

"You know what it is?" Joe Galante continued. "Somebody said you me, 'What would you give for one more year?' Everything."  

In some ways, "her care helped put this research in motion," Chesney said. 

"Even though she’s physically not here, she’s still making a profound difference," said Chesney, a friend of Phran Galante for more than two decades. "When you know the research you’re funding is the same medical treatment that extended your friend’s life — that made such a difference for her — it’s an honor to be a part of it."  

PHRAN GALANTE:Friends remember animal-welfare advocate, humanitarian and philanthropist

Quality of life

Doctors diagnosed Phran Galante with stage 4 EGFR-mutant lung cancer, a treatable but incurable disease, said Dr. Christine Lovly, an associate professor of cancer research at Vanderbilt. Lovly was one of multiple physicians in Nashville — including Dr. Anthony Meluch at Tennessee Oncology, Joe Galante said — to treat Phran Galante; her research team benefits from the new fund. 

Up to 20% of patients with lung cancer may have an EGFR mutation, Lovly said. This can include patients with little to no history of smoking, such as Phran Galante. 

Some of these patients can be treated with a pill that targets the specific cancerous mutation, Lovly said. 

"These targeted therapies are basically attacking the Achilles heel of the tumor," Lovly said.  

Precision medicine often gives patients "more time and better quality of life," Lovly said. 

And, after her diagnosis, Chesney said he often recognized Phran Galante as "the freest spirit ... she could still run rings around us." She never "phoned in life," and that showed. 

"[T]o see a woman fighting this intense battle ... yet she was still lighting up the room and making all of us feel like it was the best day ever when she was so sick?" Chesney said. "That says a lot about the work that this endowment is funding." 

'Pray for more time' 

Funding could aid research that brings targeted therapy to more patients. The donation pushes potential advancements in two ways, Lovly said: Expanding who benefits from precision medicine and answering how doctors can strengthen its response.  

Tumors can evolve, sometimes circumventing specialized treatment. For example, Lovly said some tumors could shrink 75% under targeted therapy before a medical about-face causes the cancer to grow again. 

Time and funding — aligned with advanced technology — allows her team to examine tumors on a cell-by-cell basis. This analysis helps researchers understand why precision medicine might not have fully eliminated a tumor. 

"How do we take really good response, like Phran had, to [a] cure?," Lovly said. "How do we get rid of all the tumor samples? We need to figure out how does the tumor get around the drug. What's happening within the tumor that some cells escape the drug?" 

Joe Galante hopes funding in his late wife's name raises awareness for precision medicine and lowers financial burdens that some may face when choose cancer treatment. 

In starting the fund, he "soldiers on" with cancer advocacy that began before Phran Galante's death. After all, it's what she wanted, he said. 

"She kept telling me the same thing before she passed," Joe Galante said. "She said, 'I don't want people to go through this. What can we do to help them?' That's why we're doing this ... because you just pray for more time."