Cancer Research Institute

Cancer Research Institute

Founded in 1953, the Cancer Research Institute (CRI) was established to advance the emerging field of cancer immunology. The organization is governed by a board that includes Paul C. Shiverick, co-founder of hedge fund Seminole Management Company, and Donald J. Gogel, Chairman of private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. Its Scientific Advisory Council is led by James P. Allison, whose Nobel Prize-winning work forms the scientific backbone of the institute's funding thesis. CRI operates a capital deployment strategy as a fund-of-funds, channeling its endowment into rigorous scientific research and global collaborations that translate immune-system discoveries into treatments. Its funding bridges academic labs and clinical application, with strategic partnerships established with major pharmaceutical companies including Bristol Myers Squibb, Merck, and Pfizer to accelerate clinical trials. The institute's geographic reach is anchored in the United States and extends through its international network of funded researchers and clinical partners. CRI also built the CRI Discovery Engine in New York, a data-driven platform to integrate and analyze immunotherapy research outcomes. With an estimated $93M in assets, the institute runs its operations from its headquarters at 29 Broadway in New York City. Its governance blends scientific leadership with financial and investment expertise from its board. Beyond direct research funding, CRI maintains a cryptocurrency donation portfolio to capture a modern donor base and holds sustaining membership in the Association of American Cancer Institutes, as well as membership in the Health Research Alliance, a consortium of nonprofit research funders. CRI's structural differentiator is its unwavering, six-decade concentration on a single therapeutic modality — cancer immunotherapy — executed through a hybrid model that pairs an in-house scientific advisory council of Nobel stature with a fund-of-funds allocation to external research. This architecture allows it to act as a centralized, discerning allocator of capital in a highly specialized field, rather than operating its own laboratories.