InterSystems Founder and CEO Phillip Terry Ragon and Susan Ragon donated $200 million to Boston-based Massachusetts General Hospital's vaccine research center.
The $200 million endowment is the largest donation the hospital has ever received, according to a news release. In 2009, Mr. Ragon and Mrs. Ragon, who serves as InterSystems' vice president of finance, administration and recruitment, donated $100 million to the Ragon Institute. InterSystems is a healthcare database software vendor.
The Ragon Institute of MGH, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard, both in Cambridge, Mass., is a research center aimed at discovering an AIDS vaccine. MGH, MIT and Harvard scientists collaborate on the research, and in the past few years, Ragon scientists have developed a vaccine against HIV, which is currently being tested in an efficacy trial in Africa.
"It is an honor and a great privilege to have the opportunity to participate in such an exciting effort to profoundly affect the lives of many people who struggle with infectious diseases such as HIV," Mr. Ragon said in a news release. "We are confident and excited that we are well along the path to a vaccine, and hopefully, a cure as well, for HIV and ultimately a broad range of other diseases."