As Trump Cuts Cancer Research Funding, Billionaire Sean Parker Wants To Scale It Up

For billionaire Sean Parker, who told Forbes he’s been heavily involved in lobbying to boost federal spending on medical research, that means philanthropies and the private sector will have to step in to fill some of the gap.“We've seen this incredible, historic, unprecedented retreat from public funding,” Parker, 45, told Forbes. “Which is really the engine that fuels the single most productive biotech innovation economy in the world.” In this environment, he also sees a bigger role for the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI), a philanthropic organization he founded nearly a decade ago with a $250 million grant that funds cancer research. It also invests in biotech companies turning that research into drugs. Parker poured in another $125 million in 2024, and said he’s committed more funds towards the next round of grant funding, though he didn’t disclose the amount.

As federal research funding is cut back, “the level of risk tolerance shrinks,” Knudsen told Forbes. That leaves more ambitious projects in the lurch. But PICI has a flexible model, which was part of the appeal for Knudsen. The organization is able to quickly react to changes impacting the research landscape. For example, if the organization determined that a technology is “absolutely critical and going to be the most game changing for cancer patients and it's not moving forward in another way,” PICI will shift more resources towards it, she said.