The Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute received the largest donation in San Diego’s history — a $275 million gift from a donor who wishes to remain anonymous.
The funds, which will be dispensed over 10 years, will help the La Jolla-based research center switch its focus from basic research to helping speed up the drug discovery process for diseases like cancer, diabetes and Alzheimer’s disease.
“We’ve done outstanding basic discovery research for 37 years, but the goal now is to really accelerate the movement of those laboratory discoveries to therapeutics that directly help patients,” said Kristiina Vuori, the institute’s president and interim CEO.
Sanford-Burnham also plans to refine drug development by growing stronger partnerships with pharmaceutical companies, such as those that it already has with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Pfizer Inc. A “more robust therapeutics-discovery engine” will help generate future revenue for the institute through such partnerships with the commercial sector.
The gift is timely, giving the steady decrease in funding from the National Institutes of Health, as well as the downward trend in venture capital activity across most sectors. Sanford-Burnham’s current operating budget is about $150 million — making this recent gift a game-changing addition to the Institute’s funding stream, Vuori said.
“The combination of expertise in human biology and state-of-the-art drug discovery technology under one roof sets Sanford-Burnham apart from its peer institutions,” said Gregory Lucier, chairman of the institute’s board of trustees and the chairman and CEO of Carlsbad-based Life Technologies Corp.