Deerfield sinks $130 million into latest academic partnership

The health-care investment firm Deerfield Management is teaming up with Washington University in St. Louis for its latest academic partnership. Deerfield has committed up to $130 million over 10 years toward an R&D center called VeritaScience, billed as a way for the university’s scientists to turn their research into drugs. The collaboration is part of a business strategy Deerfield has pursued since 2017: setting up academic partnerships to mine for new drug ideas. The investment firm has similar deals with the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Johns Hopkins University, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Vanderbilt University, Columbia University, and Harvard University.