University Hospitals in Cleveland has announced a $250 million initiative to dramatically change how drugs advance from discovery to commercialization and boost patient access to advanced treatments and cures. A $50 million gift from the Harrington family, well known entrepreneurs and philanthropists in Cleveland, will help launch the effort.

In recognition of the largest gift in the health system's history, the initiative, which includes a new clinical research initiative, University Hospitals Harrington Discovery Institute, and a new mission-aligned development company, will be named the Harrington Project for Discovery and Development. By aligning the two entities, the UH system hopes to establish a unique structure that enables entrepreneurial physician-scientists to focus on the discovery process and advance promising therapies into the clinical development pipeline for the benefit of individuals and communities worldwide.

To that end, the institute will provide funding, mentoring, and an infrastructure to advance breakthrough, patient-inspired clinical research projects. In addition to the gift from the Harrington family, UH has invested more than $100 million in physician-scientist development over the past several years and will continue its funding efforts in this area.

Based at UH Case Medical Center in the city's University Circle district, the institute will collaborate with major academic centers across the country. As part of the project, the mission-aligned development company will work to develop discoveries made by Harrington Scholars and other academic researchers. The company has raised its initial capital and is recruiting additional investors and evaluating programs, with an initial capital plan in excess of $100 million.

"The Harrington Project recognizes the importance of rethinking the discovery and development process from start to finish, with nationally acclaimed physician-scientists at the core of a bold model," said Jonathan S. Stamler, the newly named director of the UH Harrington Discovery Institute and director of the Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine at UH Case Medical Center and Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. "As a result of this new model, we get an accelerated, focused discovery process that will benefit society at large."