Encourage • Empower • Leverage
In October of 2013 an innovative new research institute was born. It was the brainchild of the visionary philanthropist, Mr. Lewis Sanders, who saw an opportunity for Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), The Rockefeller University (RU), and Weill Cornell Medicine (WCM) to unite in a unique spirit of collaboration to more effectively and expeditiously advance new treatments for unmet medical needs from the lab bench to patients’ bedsides. Today that institute, the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Inc. celebrates both 10 years of service to the Tri- Institutional community, along with a new name, the Sanders Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute, Inc., (Sanders TDI).
When Sanders TDI was founded, it was envisioned as a virtual organization with few employees and a large network of Contract Research Organizations (CROs) supporting drug discovery efforts. The scope of this vision changed over the years and today, Sanders TDI is a 35 member organization populated with scientists who have deep expertise in new drug discovery and development, in both small molecules and biologics. The combination of academic expertise and creativity along with professional drug development savvy is a powerful one and has resulted in 13 licensing events plus the founding of 5 new companies, based on assets developed at Sanders TDI. An equally important outcome of Sanders TDI’s work are the discovery tools provided to collaborating investigators to strengthen grant applications. To date, Sanders TDI has helped to raise more than $80M in new funding for its parent institutions’ investigators by providing research tools and advanced data sets that are not easily obtained by academic researchers.
Sanders TDI enters its next decade still dedicated to solving some of the most difficult medical problems, but in newly renovated lab space located at RU. These remarkable facilities were made possible by generous gifts from Mr. Bill Ford, Mr. Russ Carson, and Mr. Lewis Sanders. The deep appreciation that MSK, RU, and WCM have for Mr. Sanders continued and unstinting support prompted them to rename the Tri-Institutional Therapeutics Discovery Institute in his honor. The Sanders name is one that TDI is proud to carry into its future as it continues to support innovators by translating basic biology discoveries into new medicines.