Bill Ackman Commits $260 Million to Establish Brain Research Institute in Manhattan Following Daughter's Hemorrhage
Key Insights
Hedge fund billionaire Bill Ackman's Pershing Square Foundation (search) has committed $260 million to acquire two Manhattan buildings for a new brain research institute named the Ackman Oxman Institute.
The project was catalyzed by a family medical crisis in February when Ackman's 26-year-old daughter Lucy suffered a severe brain hemorrhage (search) and was found 15 hours later, yet survived against the odds.
The institute, developed in partnership with Mount Sinai (search), will house researchers focused on genetics, nutrition, longevity, rehabilitation, and neurosurgery, with operations expected to begin by year-end.
Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman, through his Pershing Square Foundation (search), has committed $260 million to acquire two adjoining buildings on Manhattan's Upper West Side to create a comprehensive brain research institute. The project, named the Ackman Oxman Institute after Ackman and his wife, designer and researcher Neri Oxman, is being developed in partnership with Mount Sinai (search) and aims to bring together experts across genetics, nutrition, longevity, rehabilitation, and neurosurgery.
The foundation closed Tuesday on 125 West End Avenue, a 400,000-square-foot building between West 65th and 66th streets, for $190 million. It has also signed a contract for the adjoining property at 320 West 66th Street for $70 million. With additional development rights the foundation is acquiring, the finished complex could approach 700,000 square feet — nearly double the current footprint and potentially eclipsing the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and other significant health research facilities in New York City.
A family crisis sparks action
The decision to build the institute was set in motion by a harrowing medical emergency. In February, Ackman's 26-year-old daughter Lucy suffered a brain hemorrhage (search) and was found lying alone on the floor of her apartment approximately 15 hours later. Ordinarily, such an injury would be terminal given the prolonged pressure on the brain, Ackman told Fortune, describing her survival as "a miracle." She has lost her voice and most of her sight but is improving significantly and is being treated at Mount Sinai (search).
Her survival was due in part to Ackman urging her doctors to attempt a series of cutting-edge, experimental treatments — including injecting mitochondria into her eye to preserve a portion of her sight after her optic nerve had been crushed. "Lucy was a test case," Ackman said, adding that the new center will build on insights garnered from his daughter's treatments and serve as a springboard for much broader advances in understanding and caring for the brain.
The idea for a brain research institute predates Lucy's hemorrhage. Ackman said he and Oxman had been weighing a major commitment to brain research since Oxman's mother died of Alzheimer's disease (search) five years ago. They had looked at the same West End Avenue site at the time, but the combined cost of real estate and staffing made it unworkable. A subsequent downturn in the life sciences sector and a growing willingness among scientists to leave academia changed the arithmetic, making the plan viable.
Leadership and scientific vision
The Ackman Oxman Institute's board includes Nobel Prize-winning cell researcher Jim Rothman and Andrew Huberman, the Stanford University neuroscientist and host of the popular podcast Huberman Lab. The board is currently working on hiring the organization's first CEO. Ackman said he expects the institute to begin operations in the main building by the end of the year, with future funding to come in part from an ecosystem of startups and venture capital attached to the institute.
The foundation has been funding neuroscience for several years. It launched the MIND Prize in 2022 to back early and mid-career investigators working on cognitive health, modeled on the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance formed in 2013, which has committed more than $49 million across 77 scientists. Established in 2006 with Ackman and Oxman as co-trustees, the foundation has committed more than $930 million in grants and social investments.
A building with history
The West End Avenue property currently houses West End Labs, a life sciences and research campus. Originally constructed as a Chrysler parts and service facility, it later formed part of the New York Times printing plant and most recently held offices for ABC and Capital Cities. The structure escaped demolition earlier this decade and was converted for laboratory use.
Ackman's broader context
The commitment lands three months after Ackman took his firm public. Pershing Square Inc. and the closed-end fund Pershing Square USA began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on April 29 in a dual listing that raised approximately $5 billion, the largest closed-end fund offering in United States history. Pershing Square managed $30.7 billion at the end of December, and Ackman directly owns about 45 percent of the entity that runs its funds.
Ackman views the brain institute as the biggest endeavor of his career. "The interesting thing is that everything I've done in my life up till now has prepared me to help her," he told Fortune. "All the philanthropic stuff, the interest in science, the fact that we met all these brain science people during COVID. We partnered with Mount Sinai (search), built a saliva-based testing lab… So when we had an emergency, I knew who to call."
No opening date has been set for the institute. The second building has not yet closed, and the eventual scale of the complex depends on whether the foundation builds out the development rights attached to the site.