Shiseido of Japan Gives Harvard $85-million Grant to Study Skin
Japan’s largest cosmetics maker is paying Harvard University $85 million to study human skin.
The money will go to a research center planned by Harvard Medical School, Shiseido Co. said.
The Massachusetts General Hospital-Harvard Cutaneous Biology Research Center will start operation next year in Boston with leading scientists in the fields of biology, immunology, and cell and molecular biology.
The grant is the largest made by a corporation to a hospital in the United States, a Shiseido spokesman said Friday.
“The center will conduct basic research in a cooperative arrangement between industry and academia,” Shiseido President Yoshiharu Fukuhara told reporters.
Patent rights obtained by the center will belong to Massachusetts General, a teaching hospital affiliated with Harvard Medical School, but will be licensed exclusively to Shiseido.
“We have been a global leader in human skin research and we hope to be a leader in the future,” Fukuhara said.
The contract will take effect Oct. 1 and continue over 10 years, the period of the financing.
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