The worlds of science and philanthropy have welcomed Wednesday night’s announcement by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his paediatrician wife Priscilla Chan that they will donate $3bn to biomedical research over the next 10 years, with a long-term ambition to “cure, prevent or manage all diseases by the end of the century”.
At the same time scientists and philanthropists were keen to put the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative into perspective, alongside estimated global spending on biomedical research of more than $200bn a year. Questions have also been raised about the choice of philanthropic vehicle, a limited company that is more flexible than a traditional charitable foundation but requires less financial transparency.
Jeremy Farrar, director of the Wellcome Trust, the largest UK medical charity, said: “Wellcome aims to spend £5bn over the next five years on our mission of improving health by helping great ideas to thrive, and we welcome the fresh impetus to science and research that the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative will bring.”
The initiative’s initial $3bn pledge compares with $3.6bn committed so far by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to combat malaria, tuberculosis and Aids; the Gates foundation has a total trust endowment of about $40bn. The US National Institutes of Health invests $32bn a year in biomedical research.
