Tech Billionaires Give $200 Million to Mass. General Hospital

The software entrepreneurs Phillip (Terry) and Susan Ragon are giving $200 million to Massachusetts General Hospital to endow a vaccine-research center, hospital officials will formally announce on Friday.

The couple gave $100 million 10 years ago to start the Ragon Institute of Massachusetts General, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Harvard, with the aim of discovering an AIDS vaccine by integrating the work of scientists in a wide range of disciplines who conduct research in collaborative teams.

Researchers at the Ragon Institute have remained focused on developing an effective HIV vaccine and are now testing one in Africa, but they have also branched out into the search for vaccines for such diseases as influenza, tuberculosis, Zika, and others that attack people’s immune systems.

Phillip Ragon founded the InterSystems Corporation, based in Cambridge, Mass., in 1978 to sell database software to banks, hospitals, and other companies. Susan Ragon is its vice president for finance, administration, and recruitment. Forbes recently pegged the couple’s net worth at $2.5 billion. In 2017 the Ragons signed the Giving Pledge, an effort by Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffett to encourage the world’s richest people to give at least half of their wealth to charity.

Including this latest donation, the Ragons have given Massachusetts General a total of $400 million. Phillip Ragon has served on the hospital’s Board of Trustees since 2014. Their $200-million gift is one the first few big donations in the hospital’s $3-billion fundraising campaign, one of the largest hospital campaigns in the country.