Investment fund pledges revenues in cancer research partnership with CSHL
By Daniel Dunaief
A stock fund is taking a page out of the Newman’s Own playbook.
The food company which was started by the late actor Paul Newman and author A.E. Hotchner donates its after tax profits to charity through the Newman’s Own Foundation, enabling consumers to feel that they aren’t just covering their salad with tasty dressing but are helping the world through their consumer choices.
Range Cancer Therapeutics, an exchange-traded fund that purchases a broad basket of cancer therapeutic stocks, created a new partnership with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to contribute to cancer research.
The fund, which was started in 2015, plans to contribute 23 percent of its revenues, reflecting the 23 pairs of chromosomes in the human genome, each quarter to Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.
“The contribution from Range will directly benefit the research efforts at CSHL, underscoring our commitment to advancing scientific innovation in oncology therapeutics,” Range ETF’s founder and CSHL Association Board Member Tim Rotolo, said in a statement. The ETF provides “exposure to nearly the entire lifecycle of drug development and distribution, and this new collaboration with CSHL provides an opportunity for investors to also see their money go toward the earliest stages of cancer breakthroughs.”
Revenues collected by the fund are likely to vary by quarter, depending on the amount of money the fund manages. With an estimated $12.1 million in assets under management as of the end of September and an expense ratio of 0.79%, the fund could contribute about $21,850.
“Hopefully, people will feel when they’re buying the ETF that they are in some ways supporting cancer research,” said Charles Prizzi, Senior Vice President for Advancement & Special Advisor to CSHL President Bruce Stillman.
Prizzi anticipates that the funding could support the lab’s efforts to conduct a broad range of research as CSHL’s staff, who come to the site from all over the world, seek to address the kinds of questions that can lead to advancements in a basic understanding of processes as well as to translational breakthroughs that can help in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of various diseases.
Prizzi hopes this partnership will attract attention and inspire other fund managers or businesses to contribute to the lab, particularly amid periods when the budgets for federal funding agencies that support research rise and fall.
Borrowing from the language of genetics, Prizzi hoped that this kind of arrangement will be “replicated” by others.
NASDAQ event
The NASDAQ stock market, which is where the Range Cancer Therapeutics Fund trades under the ticker CNCR, will celebrate the partnership on November 14th in New York City.
The Nasdaq tower will feature a visual display, while Range ETFs and CSHL leadership and guests come together at the Nasdaq podium to mark the ongoing contribution.
Dave Tuveson, head of the Cancer Center, Professor Adrian Krainer, who developed an effective treatment for spinal muscular atrophy using antisense oligonucleotide to affect gene splicing, Vice Chair Howard Morgan, and Goldman Sachs’s Roy Zuckerberg, and others will attend the event.
“Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory is one of only seven national basic biological research cancer centers designated by the National Cancer Institute in Washington, DC,” Bruce Stillman, CEO of the lab said in a statement. “The institution is investing heavily in the growth of our cancer program, specifically in multidisciplinary, collaborative ventures as part of our new brain-body physiology initiative.”
Prizzi is often searching for novel ways to support research and was pleased with the contribution and hopeful that it would spur other creative donations and support.
“I hope people will learn from it and copy it,” Prizzi said. “It will benefit the lab for many years to come.”
Rotolo joined the board at CSHL earlier this year and has supported the lab for about a decade.
Rotolo had approached the lab to establish this financial commitment.
The laboratory is a 501c3 nonprofit institution, which means that donations to the lab are tax deductible.
Prizzi suggested that interested donors often reach out to him towards the end of December.
“We would love to have more people support what we’re doing,” said Prizzi.
CSHL is home to eight Nobel Prize winners and employs 1,000 people, including 600 scientists, students and technicians.
The Meetings & Courses Program bring in more than 12,000 scientists from around the world each year, offering opportunities for researchers to meet and establish collaborations and to learn about the latest scientific breakthroughs.
CSHL is in the first phase of a Foundations for the Future project, which is a seven-acre expansion effort that will tackle research in neuroscience, neuro-AI and the brain-body. Scientists will pursue better patient outcomes by exploring cancer’s whole-body impacts.
In the second phase of the project, the lab will create a new conference center and collaborative research center.
As for the connection with Range, Prizzi added that CSHL is a “lab, we like experiments. This is like an experiment. I hope it goes well and other people build off of it.”
