Legendary Canadian entrepreneur Chip Wilson is on a mission to solve a rare disease.
What’s happening:
- Founder of iconic apparel company Lululemon (NASDAQ: LULU) is putting $100M into his venture fund to find a cure for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy, often referred to as FSHD
- Chip Wilson has been dealing with FSHD for more than three decades and wants to fund startups aiming to develop new therapeutic treatments
Why it matters:
- FSHD is a rare for of muscular dystrophy that causes the loss of skeletal muscle and has no current cure
By the numbers:
- Chip Wilson’s purpose built venture capital fund called Solve FSHD has deployed $31M into numerous biotechnology companies so far in pursuit of a cure
- Chip Wilson has publicly stated he will commit $100M to funding new startups through Solve FSHD
- Globally there are approximately 900,000 people diagnosed with FSHD