Sean Parker, the internet billionaire who co-founded Napster and is a former Facebook president, gave $250 million on Wednesday to launch the Parker Institute that will help with the research and development of cancer immunotherapy treatments.
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The Parker Institute includes over 40 laboratories and more than 300 researchers from a nationwide array of cancer centers, including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Combining the efforts of the researchers and leading cancer institutions, Parker plans to create a roadmap to funding projects to create, test, and experiment with patients at all six cancer centers each year.
Its focus will on the emerging field of cancer immunotherapy, which is now being led by Bristol-Myers Squibb’s ($BMY) Opdivo and Merck’s ($MRK) Keytruda, with a new PD-L1 drug from Roche ($RHHBY) expected to be approved by the FDA later this year.
In a manifesto written for the Wall Street Journal, Parker described hacker values as antiestablishment, seeking vulnerabilitties in the system, a belief in transparency, and a belief that you can use data to find elegant solutions to complex problems.
Jeffrey Bluestone, PhD – distinguished professor of metabolism and endocrinology at UCSF and founder of the Immune Tolerance Network, a multicenter clinical immunology research program – will serve as president and CEO of the Parker Institute.
The Parker Institute will have its own central staff of about 50, and will facilitate the patenting of inventions and requisite licensing.
Parker’s gift is part of a revolution in the life sciences led by tech visionaries like Paul Allen, Peter Thiel, Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin, who are using their considerable wealth to back approaches that go against established norms.
“I have no doubt this will allow us to make progress, and to make it much more quickly”, Wolchok said. “Right now we can’t say so… but this is the time to make investments and pronouncements”. But now, the top six cancer research centers, including Stanford and UCSF are on board.
Parker is set to donate $250 million to form the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The new initiative, called the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, is aimed at developing cures for cancer.
“There’s something very entrepreneurial about the (institute’s) way of thinking, because entrepreneurs need to be very focused”, said Parker.
They are joining forces in an unusual collaboration meant to speed development of treatments that enlist the power of the immune system against cancer.
The institute also includes partnerships with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies as well as with health non-profits. “By training (the immune system) to see unique cancer markers… when it sees it again, it can attack again”. The co-founder of Napster, an early music-sharing website, and investor in the Spotify Ltd. music-streaming service, Parker hopes to facilitate their work by helping cancer researchers share discoveries, research tools, and intellectual property.
Parker is following in the steps of Bill and Melinda Gates, who are harnessing their effort to tackle malaria globally.
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“Immunotherapy is the closest we’ve ever come to what that magical so-called cure for cancer may look like”, said Peter Jackson, 54, director of fantasy trilogies “The Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”.
