$100 Million to Mass General, MIT and Harvard from Phillip T. and Susan M. Ragon

Philip T. and Susan M. Ragon have pledged $100 million over ten years to a consortia of leading Boston institutions–Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology–to develop an effective vaccine against AIDS and harness the power of the immune system to prevent and cure other human diseases.  The gift will create the Philip T. and Susan M. Ragon Institute which will, according to Massachusetts General Hospital press office, “bring scientists and clinicians together with engineers, using the latest technologies in an interdisciplinary effort to better understand how the body fights infections and ultimately to apply that understanding against a wide range of infectious diseases and cancers.”  Mr. Ragon is founder, owner, and chief executive officer of InterSystems Corporation, a multinational software company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which provides database and integration technologies along with hospital information systems and national health record systems.  Mrs. Ragon is vice president of Finance and Administration at the company.  The couple resides in Cambridge.  In detailing their decision to make the gift to the consortia, Mr. Ragon explained that “by providing flexible funding and by connecting science and engineering at MIT and Harvard with the research and clinical resources of MGH, we intend to empower many of the world’s best researchers to focus on what they view as the most promising research. We hope to engage them in a multidisciplinary collaborative effort for which there may be no greater benefit – curing the ill and saving lives.” The Ragon Institute will be housed at Massachusetts General Hospital.