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Image shows kidney tissue constructed from organoid building blocks by Jennifer Lewis (Harvard) and Ryuji Morizane (MGH) labs. The ultimate goal is to create tissues that can restore sufficient function to free patients from dialysis.
Los Angeles – Feb. 2, 2022: Wellcome Leap (Leap), a U.S. based non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate breakthroughs for global health, has today announced an additional $335M in new funding. Combined with the $300M allocated at launch, the organization will have well over half a billion dollars at work.

The COVID-19 pandemic brought human health and the threat of disease into a focus not seen in modern history. In one of the greatest scientific accomplishments of our generation, mRNA technology has demonstrated the ability to change the timeline for developing and delivering a new vaccine from years to months. And the entire world was witness to that demonstration.

“The last 2 years have laid bare how much work we have to do in health, equity, and care for the planet. They have also revealed the difference a breakthrough makes,” said CEO, Dr. Regina E. Dugan. “We need more breakthroughs to solve the urgent challenges facing the world. And we need them faster.”

The Wellcome Trust recently announced its biggest funding commitment to science and health in its 85-year history. It plans to raise charitable spending to £16 billion (over $21.5 billion) over the next decade to fund science that supports a healthy future for everyone. It has also committed an extra £750 million (over $1 billion) to fund large-scale, high-impact activities across five years, which they anticipate will grow to £1 billion next year.

Dr. Jeremy Farrar, Director of Wellcome said: “Support for long-term, basic science is vital. We founded Wellcome Leap because we also need to ensure that somewhere in the system there is a truly disruptive element that can take bigger risks, challenge the consensus point of view, and work globally to find the best talent and ideas to push forward. We expect to allocate about 5% of our funding into the future to Wellcome Leap as a complement to our other investments. Since its inception, Wellcome Leap has hit the ground running with ambitious programs that seek to deliver transformative results from mRNA production to mental health and physiology. Bold initiatives like these are key to maintaining the momentum of the last two years. We couldn’t be more delighted, or impressed, with the work to date.”

Jay Flatley, Chair of Wellcome Leap, said “What Wellcome Leap has achieved in less than two years has exceeded all our expectations and is on par with the best execution I’ve seen in any commercial setting. The assembly of this unicorn leadership team is one of Wellcome Leap’s most important accomplishments – they are inspiring, outcome focused, and uniquely qualified to take on the challenge.”

All Wellcome Leap programs aim to deliver breakthroughs in human health over 5 – 10 years and demonstrate seemingly impossible results on seemingly impossible timelines. To do so, programs have ambitious goals that are also testable and measurable – the setting of the bar for a program is among the hardest things we do. It requires Program Directors who are scientifically accomplished and who dare to ask ‘what if?’ They formulate the program and serve as conductors of a global, dynamic network of performers working together to solve problems they cannot solve alone.

But an ambitious goal is not enough. We have to change the boundary conditions of the work itself. Wellcome Leap is optimized for breakthroughs – this requires speed, agility, and changes across all dimensions of operation, selection, and execution to systematically increase the probability of success.

Wellcome Leap has funded 5 programs that aim to create 10X improvements in three dimensions: increase understanding of human health and disease, transform economics, and increase the speed, scale and equity of access. All programs are focused on achieving tangible gains that demonstrate at convincing scale the ability to overcome some of the most challenging threats to human health from depression, brain development, and infectious diseases to the platforms needed to transform drug development, production, and access.

About Wellcome Leap Wellcome Leap builds and executes bold, unconventional programs, funded at scale. Programs that aim to deliver breakthroughs in human health over 5 – 10 years. Founded by the Wellcome Trust in 2020 as a US nonprofit with initial funding of $300 million, Leap programs target complex human health challenges with the goal of achieving breakthrough scientific and technological solutions. Operating at the intersection of life sciences and engineering, Leap programs require best-in-class, multi-disciplinary, global teams assembled from universities, companies, and nonprofits working together to solve problems that they cannot solve alone.

With an additional $335 million in funding from the Wellcome Trust, the organization now has over half a billion dollars at work.

Los Angeles – Jan. 28, 2021: Wellcome Leap (Leap), a U.S.-based non-profit organization founded by the Wellcome Trust to accelerate innovations that benefit global health, today announced the first 21 participants in the Leap Health Breakthrough Network, a global group of leading academic and research institutions committed to solving the world’s most serious health challenges — such as cancer and infectious diseases — at record speed. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of tackling urgent, large-scale health challenges quickly and across disciplines, organizations, and borders. It’s imperative that good ideas are identified and funded quickly, and that researchers across many institutions can build solutions together. 

Currently it can take as long as a year to finalize a research funding agreement, and when collaboration is required, work frequently cannot begin until all parties are signed — further prolonging the delay. What’s more, key components needed to catalyze innovation sometimes come from individual researchers or smaller institutions that are often left out of major research initiatives. Breakthroughs require momentum, and diverse capabilities, wherever they exist globally.

The Leap Health Breakthrough Network will help eliminate barriers to progress thanks to the first-of-its-kind Master Academic Research Funding Agreement (MARFA), which equitably addresses all terms and conditions, including IP, ownership, and publication. Once an organization signs the MARFA, any researcher or group will need to negotiate only the statement of work and cost before funds can be transmitted and work can begin. Often in days, shaving months or more off of development timelines. 

“Science and engineering should move at the pace of breakthroughs, not the pace of contracting,” said Leap CEO Regina E. Dugan. “Wellcome Leap has removed traditional obstacles to build a network that can mobilize and synchronize to solve problems in human health faster than has ever been possible.”

Charter signatories for the network include: Agency for Science, Technology and Research; California Institute of Technology; Carnegie Mellon University; Francis Crick Institute; Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; Massachusetts Institute of Technology; National University of Singapore; University of Auckland; University of California, Los Angeles; University of California San Diego; University of Cape Town; University of Dundee; University of Pittsburgh; University of São Paulo; University of Southern California; Uppsala University; Vanderbilt University; Virginia Tech; Wellcome Sanger Institute; Wyss Center for Bio and Neuroengineering; and Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University.

“The world has just seen an unprecedented scientific advance — the delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine in 10 months,” said Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. “Wellcome Leap has catalyzed a first-ever global network that will help deliver, well beyond this pandemic, new breakthroughs along what would previously have been considered impossible timelines.”

Participants in the Leap Health Breakthrough Network as well as commercial partners will play an ongoing part in Leap’s work to build and execute bold, unconventional programs, funded at scale. This includes efforts such as the $50 million Human Organs, Physiology, and Engineering (HOPE) program, announced in late 2020. 

Ken Gabriel, COO of Leap, said: “The opportunities for health breakthroughs are rich at the intersection of life sciences and engineering. This network will efficiently bring together collaborators from across disciplines to drive and deliver advances in global health.”

Institutions interested in joining the Leap Health Breakthrough Network should send an email to: HBNet@wellcomeleap.org.

About Wellcome Leap

Wellcome Leap builds and executes bold, unconventional programs, funded at scale. Programs that aim to deliver breakthroughs in human health over 5 – 10 years. Founded by the Wellcome Trust in 2020 as a US nonprofit with initial funding of $300 million, Leap programs target complex human health challenges with the goal of achieving breakthrough scientific and technological solutions. Operating at the intersection of life sciences and engineering, Leap programs require best-in-class, multi-disciplinary, global teams assembled from universities, companies, and nonprofits working together to solve problems that they cannot solve alone.

 

Quotes from Signatories