History of Wellcome
Founded by pharmaceutical entrepreneur Henry Wellcome, the Wellcome Trust has been working to improve human health through research for more than 80 years.
The origins of the Wellcome Trust
The Wellcome Trust was formed in 1936 in accordance with the will of Henry Wellcome – a prominent figure in the growth of the modern pharmaceutical industry during the late 1800s and early 1900s.
Starting out as a salesman for a New York pharmaceutical firm in the 1870s, Henry Wellcome travelled widely seeking new sources for medicines. He eventually set up his own firm in England with his business partner Silas Burroughs.
Through the introduction of mass production, proactive marketing and an innovative focus on research, they built an extremely successful pharmaceutical business. The growth of the business benefited heavily from indigenous medical knowledge as well as imperial policies and trading relationships that helped the firm sell products in territories colonised by the British. When Silas Burroughs died in 1895, Henry Wellcome continued to run the company.
During his lifetime, Henry Wellcome worked to advance knowledge of human health and diseases and when he died in 1936, he asked in his will for a trust to be set up and left us:
- his pharmaceutical company
- his collection of historical medical items
- directions to use these assets to improve health through research
The financial evolution of the Wellcome Trust
1936-1985
The profits from Henry Wellcome’s pharmaceutical company and other assets – collectively called the Wellcome Foundation – were used by the Wellcome Trust to fund decades of charitable activities supporting research related to health.
1985
The Wellcome Trust sold shares in the Wellcome Foundation for the first time and it was renamed Wellcome plc. This enabled the Wellcome Trust to invest in a wider portfolio, increasing our assets and giving us the ability to support more research.
1995- today
Wellcome plc was sold to pharmaceutical firm, Glaxo, eventually becoming part of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The Wellcome Trust became the independent charitable foundation it is today. Profits from the sale and subsequent investments made us one of the largest grant-giving charities in the world. We are not funded by GSK or any other pharmaceutical companies.
Today, we invest carefully and consciously in a wide range of financial assets, and the returns from our portfolio – currently worth around £38 billion – fund everything we do.
The history of our work
The Wellcome Trust has supported more than 80 years of transformative scientific research and worked with others to translate the results into real-world improvements to human health.
Our strategy and values have evolved in step with our changing world and the health challenges we face. Below is a snapshot of some of the wide-ranging impacts of the legacy Henry Wellcome left to the Wellcome Trust.
A snapshot of work funded by the Wellcome Trust since we were founded in 1936
For its first 50 years or so, The Wellcome Trust was a relatively small charity, using the profits from the company to fund research grants, laboratory buildings, prizes and exhibitions relating to health and science.
1938-1960
1938
The first grants were made by the Wellcome Trust, including one to the Wellcome Trust Research Laboratories in Thessaloniki, Greece to support malaria research.
1943
The Wellcome Trust funded a factory to make dehydrated blood products – blood and serum that could be transported anywhere and reconstituted with water. This helped save the lives of UK civilians and armed forces during the second world war.
1955
The Wellcome Research Travel Grants scheme was established – the first funding in the UK for university researchers to make short visits to other laboratories around the world. The scheme also supported early-career researchers to take jobs in other countries.
1956
Wellcome helped to fund the building of the Wellcome Research Museum of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.
1957
The Wellcome Trust contributed funding to build the Wellcome Institute for Research on Foot-and-Mouth Disease in cattle in Nairobi, Kenya. Foot-and-Mouth disease had had a devastating effect on the country.
1960
The UK Medical Research Council received funding from the Wellcome Trust to build an Epidemiological Research Unit in Jamaica to study how diseases spread.
In 1967 Wellcome trustees began to adopt a more proactive funding approach, looking for ways to fill gaps in knowledge and create opportunities to advance research.
1979
The Wellcome Trust-Mahidol University-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Programme was established in partnership with the Faculty of Tropical Medicine, Mahidol University in Thailand and Laos.
1989
The KEMRI-Wellcome Trust Research Programme was set up in partnership with the Kenya Medical Research Institute. The programme now hosts over 100 research scientists who work with local communities to achieve better health for Africa and develop African scientific leaders.
1992
The Wellcome Sanger Institute was established in the UK to complete one sixth of the total sequencing of the Human Genome Project – the largest international collaboration of its kind and one of the most important milestones in biology.
Thousands of scientists around the world would sequence the three billion pieces of genetic information that are contained in almost every human cell.
In 1995 the Wellcome Trust’s assets and funding capability hugely increased after the sale of Wellcome PLC – the body incorporating the original pharmaceutical business.
1998-2010
1998
Wellcome partnered with the UK government to set up Diamond Light Source, the largest science facility in the UK.
Diamond Light Source is a particle accelerator that produces bright beams of light for use in many areas of scientific research, such as studying viruses, vaccines or soil structure.
2003
The Human Genome Project is completed. Nearly a third of the human genome was sequenced at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, making them the largest single contributor.
New knowledge and tools stemming from this continue to transform healthcare for multiple diseases and disorders.
2004
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, a talking therapy, became the first psychiatric treatment recommended by the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence for eating disorders. This followed Wellcome-funded research around the treatment.
2008
The DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance was set up in partnership with the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India. It invests in research in biomedical sciences and supportive research ecosystems to improve health and wellbeing in India.
2010
Wellcome signed an agreement with the Medical Research Council, Cancer Research UK and University College London to found The Francis Crick Institute, which would go on to become the largest biomedical research institute in Europe.
2012-2020
2012
Zelboraf, a new drug for treating patients with melanoma skin cancer was approved in the UK, 10 years after the Wellcome-supported Cancer Genome Project identified an enzyme involved in skin cancer.
2014
In response to the biggest ever outbreak of Ebola virus, in West Africa, Wellcome led a fast, coordinated programme of research in response. These efforts contributed to the first Ebola vaccine being licensed and approved in 2019.
2017
Wellcome was a founding member of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), a global partnership working to speed up development of vaccines and other measures to help humanity tackle pandemics.
2020
Wellcome Leap was established in the USA, with a $250mn investment from Wellcome, to support scientists, technologists and innovators from around the world to pursue bold ideas that would fall outside the remit of conventional life sciences funding.
In 2020 Wellcome announced a new - support science to solve the urgent health challenges facing everyone. This new strategy focused Wellcome’s strengths on giving researchers the freedom to explore and on using research to solve three worldwide health challenges - climate and health, infectious disease and mental health. .
2021-onwards
2021
A Wellcome-supported malaria vaccine, RTS,S, was approved by the World Health Organization and has reached more than a million children in Ghana, Kenya and Malawi with 12 countries set to receive 18 million vaccine doses by 2025.
2023
The UN’s annual Climate Change Conference (COP) included its first Health Day. 150 countries signed the first COP Climate and Health declaration, which Wellcome helped to shape, committing to deliver climate action in a way that protects people’s health.
2024
Wellcome launched £20 million in funding for Black, Bangladeshi and Pakistani researchers in the UK, recognising that diversity of people in science leads to richer understanding and more impactful discoveries.
2024
Wellcome, Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Gates Foundation announced a partnership to support critical scientific research and development for global health. The partnership aims to support science and innovation to advance solutions that are accessible and affordable to people in low- and middle-income countries.
Henry Wellcome and colonialism
As the owner of an international business in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Henry Wellcome’s success is intrinsically connected with colonialism and its legacy today. This is apparent in the immense collection of historical medical terms he assembled from across the world – some of which are still part of the Wellcome Collection today.
We have a responsibility to be honest and transparent about the past injustices in which our collections are rooted, and we have begun a series of initiatives to change the way we manage and use our collections.
