A private equity firm has stepped in to finance a biological research lab at Harvard University, administrators said Monday, while also launching a biotech alongside it that will develop new therapies for metabolic conditions.
As Harvard grapples with severe financing cuts undertaken by the Trump administration, some university officials believe the unusual arrangement could be at least one model to fund other academic research in the future.
Under the deal announced Monday, İş Private Equity, a Turkish firm, has committed $39 million to a laboratory run by Gökhan Hotamışlıgil, a professor of genetics and metabolism at the T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The firm, which is a branch of Turkey’s İşbank Group, also plans to invest an undisclosed amount of money in any drug candidates that come out of Hotamışlıgil’s laboratory and are moved into a new biotech called Enlila.
It’s a relatively modest deal, in the scope of investment banking. But the collaboration provides much-needed capital at a time when the model for funding scientific research has been thrown into chaos.
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