Over the course of two competitions, we have:

The MIT Faculty Founder Initiative was created after a research project done by Sangeeta Bhatia, Susan Hockfield, and Nancy Hopkins found there was significant variability in faculty biotech founder rates across the institute.

From this data, it was estimated that there could have been forty additional biotech firms today.

In response to this study, the MIT Faculty Founder Initiative was launched in 2020 by the School of Engineering, in collaboration with the Martin Trust Center.

Our aim is to increase the number of faculty members at MIT who start biotechnology companies through the MIT Faculty Founder Prize Competition, supported by Royalty Pharma. We believe this is important to bring high-impact technologies to the world that are not currently being commercialized.

The Initiative is led by Sangeeta Bhatia (Wilson Professor of Engineering; member of four national academies; Lemelson Prize winner; 7-time founder including Glympse Bio and Satellite Bio) and Kit Hickey (Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan; serial entrepreneur and co-founder of Ministry of Supply) in collaboration with Susan Hockfield (MIT President Emerita and Professor of Neuroscience).

“What that means is 40 more potential medicines. The societal impact of that is really important. It’s a lost opportunity.“

Sangeeta Bhatia

MIT Wilson Professor of Engineering