“For many of the most challenging diseases, medical therapy has been limited to relieving symptoms because disease-modifying or curative treatments seemed impossible,” says Jeffrey Leiden, MD, PhD, executive chairman of Vertex Pharmaceuticals. “Today, we have arrived at an inflection point where we can use novel genetic and cell-based therapies to cure or alter the course of serious diseases. We are literally rewriting the future of medical therapy.”

Leiden has deep ties to the Brigham, where he trained in medicine and now serves as a scientific advisor, philanthropic supporter, and ardent champion for gene and cell therapy. Seeing the opportunity for the institution to emerge as a leader in this competitive field, he and his wife, Lisa, committed $4 million to establish the Jeffrey and Lisa Leiden Clinical Trials Center at the Brigham. In his honor, the Vertex Foundation also extended a $5 million gift to the new center, which will focus on speeding gene and cell therapies to patients with serious diseases.

“We are thrilled to see the Leiden Clinical Trials Center come to fruition,” says Amit K. Sachdev, chair of the Vertex Foundation board of directors. “The Vertex Foundation’s support, along with the Leiden family’s giving, is about moving translational medicine forward. We’re proud of all Dr. Leiden has done and continues to do for patients and Boston’s scientific community. The hopes of patients and families around the world depend on our collective success.”

Lindsey R. Baden, MD, an internationally renowned clinical researcher and vice president of clinical research at Mass General Brigham, leads the Leiden Clinical Trials Center.

Baden notes that the Leidens’ philanthropy has allowed the center to expand its team of gene and cell therapy experts and initiate multiple clinical studies for cancer and rheumatologic, dermatologic, and cardiovascular illnesses.

“We are moving rapidly to understand the potential benefits of these emerging technologies across so many different diseases, as the promise of this work has great potential to alleviate the suffering of our most severely ill patients,” Baden says. “The Leidens’ commitment to accelerating our gene and cell therapy research is bringing us closer to groundbreaking treatments. We are forever grateful to them.”

With progress already underway, the Leiden Clinical Trials Center will be formally dedicated and celebrated in summer 2025.