Bristol-Myers Squibb Awards $5.6 Million in Unrestricted Grants

Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) recently hosted the “Freedom to Discover” awards ceremony, an event-recognizing scientists who have made significant contributions to biomedical research. The event, held at the Museum of Natural History, also recognized 12 institutions and principle investigators who this year have received grants from Bristol-Myers Squibb totaling $5.6 million, and six leading U.S. biomedical researchers who each received a $50,000 cash prize award for distinguished achievement in their fields. This year’s event also featured a special symposium, in which some of the world’s leading research scientists participated in a panel discussion about “The Future of Medicine.”

“It is appropriate that we are holding a symposium about the future of medicine at the same time we honor these researchers,” said Peter R. Dolan, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Bristol-Myers Squibb. “For most of their careers, these award winners—and those who have come before them—have been searching for answers that have profound implications for human health and welfare. Today’s grant recipients have the tools to seek solutions to some of medical science’s most vexing problems, without having to create burdensome grant proposals or deal with massive administrative details. These grant recipients seek to improve the possibilities for the health and well-being of people everywhere.”

Bristol-Myers Squibb’s landmark biomedical research awards and grants program is the world’s largest industry source of no-strings-attached grants. Since the program’s inception in 1977, more than $100 million has been committed through 240 grants to more than 150 institutions in 23 countries. Sixteen Nobel laureates are among the recipients.

Bristol-Myers Squibb awards unrestricted research grants in six areas: cancer, cardiovascular disease, infectious diseases, metabolics, neuroscience and nutrition. In each area, up to two $500,000, five-year grants are awarded each year, except nutrition, in which up to two $300,000, three-year grants are awarded annually. The total amount awarded each year is $5.6 million. All of these grants carry no restrictions or conditions and directly support the researchers and their labs.

Each year, Bristol-Myers Squibb also presents six awards for distinguished achievement to individual researchers—one for each of the six areas covered by the Unrestricted Biomedical Research Grants Program. Independent peer review committees, comprised of the principal investigators of Bristol-Myers Squibb Unrestricted Research Grants, evaluate nominees and select the Distinguished Achievement Award recipients.

The award winners have pioneered efforts and made critical discoveries leading to important new therapies, and have greatly expanded vital areas of research in vascular biology; genetic regulation of cell differentiation; bacterial toxins, including anthrax; micronutrients; cancer cell growth; and the transmission of information throughout the nervous system.

This year, for the first time, the two related Bristol-Myers Squibb programs, the Unrestricted Research Grant program and the Distinguished Achievement Awards, were combined under one name—The Bristol-Myers Squibb Freedom To Discover Unrestricted Biomedical Research Grants and Awards Program—and celebrated at one award event.

“‘Freedom To Discover’ best characterizes what this program supports: unfettered freedom to explore the uncharted territory of biomedical science in any way the researcher sees fit,” Mr. Dolan explains.

The goals of the Freedom To Discover program are clear, according to James B.D. Palmer, M.D., F.R.C.P., president of the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute: “We need to discover, from a basic science, applied technology and social perspective, what’s standing in the way of achieving the promise and potential of medicine in this new century. To do that, we must support unfettered research, uncompromising science, and a continued quest for understanding the mechanisms of disease.”#

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