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BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT 13th
August, 2005:The Czech-immigrant scientist Dr
Jan T. Vilcek who developed the blockbuster
Remicade has decided to contribute his lifetime’s
fortune to his professional home for four decades
--the New York University School of Medicine.
Dr Vilcek’s $105 million donation is one of the
four or five largest ever given to a school or
health care institution in New York City, and
among the biggest in the nation, according to
organizations.
Dr Vilcek headed a research team which developed a
chemical that blocked TNF-alpha. Centocor, a
pharmaceutical company now part of Johnson &
Johnson. The NYU. scientists turned that discovery
into infliximab, which Centocor sells as Remicade.
Remicade is currently used to treat Crohn's
disease, rheumatoid arthritis and psoriatic
arthritis. Scientists believe that the work also
has implications for treating other diseases, like
ulcerative colitis.
Dr Vilcek was one of the early researchers on
interferon, one of the first immune system
proteins discovered by scientists. Since the early
1980's, he has worked with another immune protein,
TNF-alpha, which is involved in fighting
infections.
Sometimes the immune system goes awry and produces
too much TNF-alpha, causing the severe
inflammation that inflicts pain and tissue damage
in autoimmune diseases.
Launched in 1998, Remicade quickly became a major
success. According to IMS Health, sales of
Remicade hit close to $2 billion, last year,
making it one of the 25 best-selling prescription
drugs in the country. The proceedings from the
drug made Dr. Vilcek a rich man, as well as
earning a large amount of money for the
university.
Dr Vilcek's gift will go to NYU in three parts - a
lump sum of cash, the rights to some future
royalties, and a trust. The school declined to
state the value of each part, but estimated the
combined worth at $105 million.
Most of the money will go toward the sort of basic
research on microbes that Dr. Vilcek has done and
upgrading laboratories. A portion of the money
will go to the medical school's ear, nose and
throat department.
According to the Greater New York Hospital
Association, the largest gift to any medical
institution in the city was a $130 million bequest
to Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn, from
Donald and Mildred Othmer, in 2000.
Dr. Vilcek's may be the single biggest gift to a
medical school in the city, according to both the
hospital association and The Chronicle of Higher
Education. Sanford and Joan Weill gave $100
million to Cornell University's medical school in
1998, and another $100 million in 2002. The school
was renamed in their honor.
The donation by Dr. Vilcek ranks among the 30
largest ever given to a single college or
university anywhere in the country, of which only
a handful were specifically for medical work,
according to a ranking maintained by The Chronicle
of Higher Education.
BY OUR PHARMA CORRESPONDENT |
