Blavatnik Family Foundation has made a $15m grant to Yale University to boost its life sciences-focused fund to $25m two years after it was first established.
Yale University received a $15m grant from philanthropic organisation Blavatnik Family Foundation yesterday to expand the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation to $25m.
Established in 2016, the Blavatnik Fund accelerates the development, application and commercialisation of early-stage life sciences research. It is administered by Yale’s tech transfer arm, Office of Cooperative Research (OCR).
The vehicle offers strategic resources to departments across the university through research grants allocated to faculty and through a fellowship program. It provides pilot grants aimed at exploratory and proof-of-concept studies as well as development grants for later-stage projects.
Revenue from successful commercialisation activities is reinvested into the fund.
During its first award cycle in 2016 to 2017, the fund backed eight projects, focused on the areas of Alzheimer’s disease, fibrosis and end-stage tumors as well as early-stage research into cancer and diabetes treatments.
The fund received 76 proposals from 23 departments across Yale University for its 2017 to 2018 award cycle, and the increased capital will enable OCR to support more projects going forward.
OCR selected the winners of the second award cycle yesterday, though at the time of writing they are not yet listed on its website.
The aforementioned fellowship program, called Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Sciences Entrepreneurship, will also be expanded. It is aimed at early-career scientists and business people in the biomedical space.
Fellows work with faculty and OCR to commercially develop discoveries made at Yale. They receive hands-on support with structuring licensing agreements, polishing development plans with the help of mentors and external advisors, and gaining feedback from venture capitalists.
The Blavatnik Fellows for 2018 to 2019 have been named as Sorin Fedeles, Caroline Rufo, Timothy Siegert and Milica Vukmirovic. They were selected from dozens of applicants.
Len Blavatnik, head of Blavatnik Family Foundation, said: “Researchers in the life sciences are constantly making novel discoveries that have a tremendous positive impact on our lives, especially in the prevention and treatment of disease.
“Our hope is that by fostering a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem at Yale, we can significantly accelerate the application of these breakthrough discoveries to benefit those in need.”