Businessman Marcus Blackmore gifts $10m to Western Sydney Uni
Vitamin king Marcus Blackmore and his family have given Western Sydney University $10m for natural health research.
Businessman Marcus Blackmore and his family have given $10m to Western Sydney University for its world leading complementary medicine centre, the NICM Health Research Institute.
The gift from the Blackmore Family Foundation, which is the personal philanthropic trust of Mr Blackmore and his wife Caroline Blackmore, will help the institute target chronic disease areas where it believes complementary medicine will have most impact.
Mr Blackmore, whose fortune comes from the natural health company Blackmores founded by his naturopath father Maurice Blackmore in 1932, sold his stake last year to Japanese beverages giant Kirin when it acquired the company.
Announcing the $10m gift, Western vice-chancellor Barney Glover said longstanding support from Mr Blackmore and the foundation for the NICM Health Research Institute since 2007 was “an example of collaboration between universities and philanthropists to drive research and innovation”.
Mr Blackmore said the institute was a “game changer not just for industry, but also for the 70 per cent of Australians who take complementary medicines each year”.
He has given substantial amounts to NICM before. A $10m donation announced in 2017, to be spread over seven years, came half from the foundation and half from Blackmores the company.
The Blackmore foundation has also given to other universities including $10m to Southern Cross University in 2018 to set up a National Centre for Naturopathic Medicine.
In 2018 the foundation also gave UTS $750,000 to support two research fellows in the university’s Australian Research Centre for Complementary and Integrative Medicine.
Earlier this year the Blackmore foundation gave Griffith University $6.3m to establish the Blackmore chair in the business school and support three Blackmore Leadership Summits, the first in 2025.
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