Altieri admitted to being overwhelmed by the gift from the benefactor, who he would only identify as a longtime friend and visionary.

"I mean $30 million, Wistar doesn't get that kind of money," he said. "We never have before. That's a number for big institutions — the Penns and Harvards and Yales of the world. This is really the kind of transformative gift that can change people's lives, and we are very grateful."

Altieri said the gift will support the Center for Advanced Therapeutics and its mission to "foster freedom to discover, embrace innovation and advance the most promising research findings from the laboratory benches to patients in the clinic."

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DANIEL BURKE PHOTOGRAPHY

Construction of the Center for Advanced Therapeutics at Wistar in University City is scheduled to begin In August and be completed in February 2025. The center is being created to serve as a "unique engine for cross-disciplinary collaboration, scientific innovation, and impactful public-private partnerships to pursue the medicines of tomorrow," according to Wistar.

Altieri said Wistar is conducting an international search to identify a director for the center, a project he expects will generate six new faculty positions and bring 50 new staff members to the institute. The nonprofit now employs 367 scientists, administrators and support staff. The goal is to name a director by the end of this year.

The center will focus on next-generation immunotherapies and small molecule therapeutics that address unmet medical needs and hard-to-treat conditions in cancer and infectious diseases. The center, the institute said, will take on unexplored research areas with enormous therapeutic potential such as the diversity of B cell and T cell therapies, novel drug-target interfaces, and emerging vaccine platforms.

"We want to learn more about the nuts and bolts of the disease, with an angle of identifying potential new targets and leverage the extraordinary community that we have around us," Altieri said. "Then, through collaboration with partners, end up in early -stage innovative clinical trials."

Ronald Caplan, founder of Philadelphia-based PMC Property Group, is chairman of Wistar's Bold Science/Global Impact Campaign. He and his wife Ellen donated $10 million to the campaign in 2022.

Wistar has so far raised $63 million for the $75 million campaign.

Elsewhere in local health care-related philanthropy, Fox Chase Cancer Center announced it has received a gift of $10.8 million from the Estate of Concetta “Chet” Greenberg. The gift, according to the cancer center, is the culmination of many years of support by Greenberg and her estate, which have now donated nearly $20 million for pancreatic cancer research at Fox Chase. The funds will provide further support for The Marvin and Concetta Greenberg Pancreatic Cancer Institute at Fox Chase, which was established in 2017.

Source: Philadelphia Business Journal

Link to article: https://www.bizjournals.com/philadelphia/news/2024/06/14/wistar-institute-center-for-advanced-therapeutics.html?ana=brss_3970