With Record $275M Gift, Sanford-Burnham Unveils New 10-Year Plan

San Diego’s Sanford-Burnham Medical Research Institute says today it has landed a $275 million pledge from an anonymous donor, just as the institute is embarking on a new 10-year strategic plan.

The plan sets forth a vision for aligning the nonprofit institute’s basic biomedical research, translational research, and drug discovery and development. In a statement this morning, the Sanford-Burnham also calls for extending small-molecule drug discoveries through pre-clinical validation as a way to strengthen the institute’s ties with its pharmaceutical partners, which include Takeda, Pfizer, and Janssen Pharmaceuticals.

“Our strategic vision will enable us to speed cures to patients through an expanded network of partnerships with organizations that share our mission to conquer disease,” says Kristiina Vuori, Sanford-Burnham president and interim CEO, in the statement.

The institute says its new $275 million pledge, payable over 10 years, is the largest philanthropic commitment it has ever received. Four years ago, the institute pulled in a $50 million donation from philanthropist T. Denny Sanford. The institute hopes to build on the latest gift by raising an additional $225 million over the next decade.

The institute also plans to explore a team-based approach to accelerate the pace of its biomedical discoveries by bringing together basic research scientists with clinical investigators. The concept includes the formation of “integrated disease teams” and “diversified translational laboratories” to quickly assess whether laboratory discoveries can be turned into practical applications for curing or preventing disease. The idea is to take advantage of the institute’s existing and new partnerships with healthcare organizations such as the Mayo Clinic, Florida Hospital, and Sanford Health.

“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,” Gregory Lucier, chairman of the institute’s board of trustees and the chairman and CEO of Carlsbad, CA-based Life Technologies (NASDAQ: [[ticker:LIFE]]).

Author: Bruce V. Bigelow

In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here. Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University. Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.