Blackmores give $1.5m for alternative research

Natural therapies magnate Marcus Blackmore is the major donor in a $1.5 million gift to University of Technology Sydney to fund research into alternative medicine.

Marcus Blackmore. Picture: Adam Yip.

Natural therapies magnate Marcus Blackmore is the major donor in a $1.5 million gift to University of Technology Sydney to fund research into alternative medicine. Mr Blackmore and his wife, Caroline, have given $750,000 through their personal philanthropic trust, the Blackmore Foundation, with the rest coming from supplement manufacturer BioCeuticals and the Jacka Foundation of Natural Therapies.

The money goes to the UTS Australian Research Centre for Complementary and Integrative Medicine to support two research fellows.

The money is untied, meaning the centre will decide the research questions that will be pursued. Last year the Blackmore Foundation gave $5m (matched by $5m from the Blackmores company) to the National Institute of Complementary Medicine at Western Sydney University.

Of the latest gift Mr Blackmore said: “Our involvement in this donation is a reflection of our unswerving and ongoing responsibility and obligation to finding the most efficacious and evidence-based approaches for practitioners and their patients. This research will be Australia-focused, national in scale and independent, since the centre will design and apply it as it sees fit.”