November 11, 2010 | Read Time: 2 minutes
The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation announced today that it will give $100-million over five years to fight adult-onset diabetes in the United States, a disease the federal government estimates could afflict one in three Americans by 2050.
“Type 2 diabetes is really at epidemic proportions,” said John L. Damonti, president of the foundation, which is the philanthropic arm of the New York pharmaceutical company. He said federal estimates show that the United States spends more than $160-billion each year to treat people with the disease.
Mr. Damonti said the foundation will take an approach to fighting diabetes that focuses not on drugs but on changing the way people care for themselves and others.
That approach has been shaped, in part, by lessons from the foundation’s grants to fight AIDS in Africa. The fund recognized that improving the nutrition of AIDS patients and pairing them with peers who helped them stick to their drug regimen were often as important as providing access to the drugs, Mr. Damonti said.
“What happens in the 20 minutes or half hour one is in the clinic is important,” he said. “But what happens in the other 23-and-a-half hours of the person’s day, when they set foot out of that clinic, and the challenges they face in terms of diet, exercise, stress, all those other aspects, is a key factor that we want to take a look at.”
Identifying Partners
The Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation will be seeking local and national nonprofits that have identified promising strategies to control diabetes. It has already identified a few grantees, such as the United Hospital Fund. The nonprofit will work with the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and the city’s Department for the Aging to identify ways that centers for older people, businesses, clinics, and other institutions can help people better manage diabetes in areas where many elderly people live.
The foundation will also ask charities to apply for grants related to specific challenges, the first of which is fighting diabetes among black women. Bristol-Myers Squibb’s philanthropy will award five grants of up to $300,000 each to groups that have a plan for working with black women to control the disease.
Mr. Damonti said the diabetes program is being paid for by a $100-million donation the company made to its foundation last year. He said the new program would not reduce the foundation’s giving to other causes.
The diabetes effort is the second large philanthropic commitment to be announced by a company this week. On Tuesday, IBM announced that it would devote $50-million worth of technology and services to help 100 cities worldwide become more efficient in how they deliver services and grow.
