A megamerger for cancer research
A megamerger for cancer researchMichael de la Merced
For nearly 50 years, the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation has raised and given out millions of dollars to find treatments for the disease.
Now the organization is taking a big step: a merger with the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research, founded by the hedge fund billionaire Alex Knaster, to create a new initiative to research how aging affects cancer risk, Michael de la Merced is first to report.
It’s a union of two prominent research organizations. Created and led by the oncologist Samuel Waxman, the Waxman Foundation has distributed more than $120 million worldwide. The Mark Foundation has awarded more than $275 million in funding to individuals and early-stage companies, which has helped support nearly 20 new drugs and diagnostic tools.
The two will create the Samuel Waxman Institute for Aging & Cancer, which intends to award $15 million in grant funding over the next three years.
The back story: They first collaborated in 2022, jointly hosting scientific workshops and then teaming up on research funding. Last year, they awarded $1.5 million to three research groups studying the connection between aging and cancer.
As the organizations focused more on that link, they realized that it made sense to combine forces: The merger is “a natural fit from a mission perspective,” Ryan Schoenfeld, the Mark Foundation’s C.E.O., told DealBook.
Waxman added that the tie-up made sense financially, reducing his group’s overhead and providing it with more stable funding.
An unavoidable backdrop: cuts to federal medical funding. The Trump administration has sought to slash the National Institutes of Health’s budget by $18 billion or nearly half, which is eroding funds for research into cancer and other diseases. (Even some Republican lawmakers have resisted the move.)
Schoenfeld said that the cuts hadn’t affected how either research organization operates: “It’s not changed by the current environment,” he said. He added that the Mark Foundation remained financially strong, especially since Knaster pledged hundreds of millions in additional support.
While “we can’t measure up to the N.I.H.,” Waxman said, the Waxman and Mark foundations have provided research funding that wasn’t always covered by federal grants. He added that he believed scientists would continue to receive most of their funding from federal sources like the N.I.H.
“I’m not giving up on that,” Waxman said, adding that federal support for scientific research was “going to survive, and it will thrive.”