The first and only mission-driven,
self-sustaining, scalable venture philanthropy
fund focused on multiple myeloma.
Expanding on over two decades of expertise and success through the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation (MMRF), the Myeloma Investment Fund is a new, independent, self-sustaining venture fund. With a goal of raising $50M, the Fund will focus on accelerating the MMRF’s mission to deliver precision medicine approaches to every patient by investing in the most promising companies, clinical assets, and technologies in multiple myeloma. In addition to financial support, we offer prospective companies access to our existing longstanding relationships with pharmaceutical companies and academic medical centers, a clinical network of 23 sites (the MMRC), and the largest genomics data set of any cancer.
Listen to MMRF Founder and Chief Mission Officer Kathy Giusti’s overview of the MMRF strategic plan that outlined the Myeloma Investment Fund as a critical initiative.
Our aim is to create major scientific breakthroughs by directing capital where financial support could have an immediate and meaningful impact on patients’ lives. As a venture philanthropy fund, neither management nor donors to the Myeloma Investment Fund receive distributions. All profits are recycled back into the Fund, allowing us to continually invest in emerging science.
Why this fund?
As the world’s leading multiple myeloma research organization, we’ve partnered with pharmaceutical companies and academic centers to deliver 15 breakthrough treatments that have been able to extend the lives of thousands of multiple myeloma patients.
This extraordinary progress though, has created a crowded space that has made some companies hesitant to invest, causing a vast chasm between scientific discoveries and the translation of these discoveries into lifesaving treatments. Developing new molecularly-driven drugs, immuno-therapies, and learning how to best individualize them for each patient is critical to extend and save lives of patients with this still-fatal disease.
As a response to this, we established the Myeloma Investment Fund in 2019 to help attract new biotech and technology firms to the field, allowing them to continue to innovate, while simultaneously building a funding model that will enable us to keep investing in lifesaving research. As a result, the Myeloma Investment Fund and the MMRF are separate and distinct entities, run by separate teams, following separate volunteer governance, and each with a different approach to opportunities.