Broad Institute and Deerfield Management launch innovative partnership to tackle serious unmet medical needs

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. and NEW YORK, Oct. 10, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and Deerfield Management announced today the launch of a first-of-its-kind research partnership, aimed at solving complex, early-stage therapeutic challenges related to serious unmet medical needs.

The arrangement is unique in two respects. First, a major investment firm is partnering with an academic research institution to pursue transformative, early-stage therapeutics research-- through a plan that includes funding for early-stage academic research followed by support to create new entities to develop therapies based on the most promising projects. Second, Deerfield Management will dedicate any of its profits from a successful therapeutic earned by its Healthcare Innovations Fund to its philanthropic arm, the Deerfield Foundation, which supports healthcare initiatives that benefit children and adults in underserved communities and healthcare innovation.

In this new partnership, Deerfield will commit more than $50 million to the advancement of therapeutic research projects at the Broad Institute over an initial period of five years. In addition, Deerfield is prepared to provide significant additional resources to advance the development of highly-promising targets generated as part of the collaboration.

"Over the last few years, Broad Institute researchers have developed a number of unprecedented biological insights and therapeutic hypotheses that are early-stage but potentially transformative," said James Flynn, Managing Partner of Deerfield. "Moving these hypotheses from the lab toward the clinic requires significant financial resources to build on work launched by philanthropy and grants, and are not yet far enough along to attract traditional venture funding or pharmaceutical collaborations. We are prepared to fund and develop these projects so Broad researchers can immediately pursue bold ideas, and have confidence that real breakthroughs will have additional support to move toward clinical success."

This partnership follows the Broad Institute's principles for disseminating scientific innovations, which aim to ensure that others can build on scientific advances made by the Broad community to maximize the benefit for human health. Knowledge and intellectual property developed will be shared widely with other academic and non-profit research institutions, and may also be made available for commercial therapeutic development.

"Over the last decade, scientific advances have made it possible to rapidly understand the biological basis of disease at unprecedented resolution," said Eric S. Lander, president and founding director of the Broad Institute. "The challenge now is to develop ways to speed the process of turning these scientific insights into therapies that benefit patients."

"We are thrilled to work with Deerfield Management, which is aligned with our institutional mission and values," said Issi Rozen, chief business officer at the Broad Institute. "This collaboration will allow our researchers to proceed with high-impact work that will benefit the patient in the long-term."

About Deerfield
Deerfield is an investment management firm committed to advancing healthcare through investment, information and philanthropy.

For more information, please visit www.deerfield.com

About the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard was launched in 2004 to empower this generation of creative scientists to transform medicine. The Broad Institute seeks to describe all the molecular components of life and their connections; discover the molecular basis of major human diseases; develop effective new approaches to diagnostics and therapeutics; and disseminate discoveries, tools, methods, and data openly to the entire scientific community.

Founded by MIT, Harvard, Harvard-affiliated hospitals, and the visionary Los Angeles philanthropists Eli and Edythe L. Broad, the Broad Institute includes faculty, professional staff, and students from throughout the MIT and Harvard biomedical research communities and beyond, with collaborations spanning over a hundred private and public institutions in more than 40 countries worldwide. For further information about the Broad Institute, go to http://www.broadinstitute.org.

For more information, contact:
Deerfield Management Company
Karen Heidelberger, 212-551-1600
[email protected]

Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
David Cameron
617-714-8600
[email protected]

SOURCE Deerfield Management Company

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