Swiss Billionaire Hansjörg Wyss Gives Harvard $131 Million for Science-and-Engineering Institute

The Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss gave $131 million to Harvard University for the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, the donor’s foundation and the university announced on Friday. This is the latest of several significant donations that Wyss has given Harvard through his Washington-based Wyss Foundation.

In 2009, he gave a $125-million grant to create the institute, followed by a donation in 2013 to expand it. The Wyss Institute houses research programs led by scientists and engineers from various fields along with experts with industrial experience. Over the past decade, their work has led to more than 2,600 patent filings, 53 licensing agreements, 29 start-ups, and numerous industry collaborations.

So far, Wyss has given a total of more than $400 million to Harvard, where he earned an M.B.A. in 1965. He has given elsewhere as well. In 2014, for example, he pledged $120 million to two Swiss universities, the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, in Zurich, to create a medical-research center.

Wyss, a Swiss citizen who lives most of the time in Wyoming, has also given large sums to environmental groups. Last year he announced that he planned to give $1 billion to environmental causes through the Wyss Foundation. The grantmaker has assets of nearly $2.2 billion, according to its 2017 tax filings, the most recent information available.

Wyss’s wealth, which stands at about $6 billion, according to Forbes, is derived largely from the 2012 sale of his medical-device company, Synthes, to Johnson & Johnson for $19.7 billion in cash and stock. He founded Synthes USA, the U.S. division of the Swiss medical-device manufacturer, in 1977, after stints in the textile and steel industries. Wyss also worked as an engineer and project manager for Chrysler in Pakistan, Turkey, and the Philippines.