Billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman and his wife Neri Oxman are committing approximately $400 million to establish a nonprofit institute focused on brain research, medical rehabilitation, and human longevity.
The initiative was spurred by a family crisis earlier this year, when in February, Ackman’s 26-year-old daughter, Lucy, suffered a massive brain hemorrhage in her Brooklyn apartment.
Found unconscious, she underwent emergency surgery more than 19 hours after the bleeding began and in following weeks she was in a medically induced coma, lost the ability to speak, walk, see, or breathe independently.
Six months into her recovery, she has regained cognitive function, can navigate short distances with help, and is beginning to speak again, though she remains blind.
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Her medical journey led Ackman to seek a system that could turn individual clinical breakthroughs into widespread treatments for complex neurological damage.
The newly created Ackman Oxman Institute, or AOI, will occupy a 3.4-acre footprint on Manhattan’s West Side.
The campus includes a newly acquired 400,000-square-foot biotech building on West End Avenue, secured at a significant discount by the Pershing Square Foundation.
The organization is also acquiring an adjacent 130,000-square-foot facility currently used as studio space for Saturday Night Live, alongside neighboring parcels. Combined, the multi-building site could eventually encompass roughly 680,000 square feet.
To provide long-term funding, Ackman transferred 10 million shares of Pershing Square Capital Management to the institute while the dividends and share appreciation from the stock will serve as a permanent financial base.
The family plans to make an additional contribution of similar or greater magnitude to cover early operational expenses.
Rather than concentrating on traditional academic publishing, the institute will operate with a commercial orientation aimed at rapidly advancing medical tools to patients.
Work will span neurosurgery, neuroscience, hyperbaric oxygen therapy, nutrition, and brain-computer interface technologies, a sector represented by firms such as Neuralink and Precision Neuroscience.
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The facility will also operate an internal venture capital arm to fund and incubate promising breakthroughs.
Returns generated from spun-out startups, licensing agreements, and commercialized devices will be plowed back into the nonprofit’s research programs.
Ackman cited rising operational costs and administrative friction within standard university models as key reasons for creating an independent entity.
While remaining separate from higher education institutions, the institute plans to collaborate non-exclusively with major hospital systems, including Mount Sinai.
The advisory board features high-profile figures such as Regeneron chief executive officer George Yancopoulos, inventor Dean Kamen, Nobel laureate James Rothman, and neurosurgeon Chris Kellner, who directed Lucy’s care team.
The institute expects to announce its chief executive officer by October.