Ernesto Bertarelli, co-Chair of the Bertarelli Foundation, has announced the creation of the Bertarelli Foundation Health and Life Sciences Entrepreneurship Fund with a generous gift to Harvard Business School.
The fund will support activities at the Harvard Innovation Lab (i-lab), which leverages entrepreneurial spirit throughout the University and shows the unlimited possibilities unleashed when individuals from a wide range of fields but with a shared passion are brought together. In particular, the fund will support the Deans’ Health and Life Sciences Challenge, launched in 2012 and chaired by Nitin Nohria, Dean of Harvard Business School and Jeffrey S. Flier, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Harvard Medical School (HMS).
Dean Nohria commented:
“Our Deans’ Challenge was created to accelerate the development of innovative solutions and help position Harvard University as the pre-eminent institution in health care and life sciences. With the generous support of the Bertarelli Foundation, we hope this challenge will inspire innovative solutions to major problems in the world’s health care system by advancing new cures and therapies, developing new ways to apply information technology, and designing new health care systems to deliver affordable health.”
Earlier this year, the Bertarelli Foundation made two additional gifts to Harvard University. Driven by the power of scientific teamwork, the foundation gave $6 million to expand the Bertarelli Program in Translational Neuroscience and Neuroengineering at HMS and EPFL. A second gift of $3 million established the Bertarelli Catalyst Fund for the Dean of HMS, with the goal of enabling key research opportunities at the school.