The Vertex Foundation Donates $500,000 to Partners HealthCare to Support COVID-19 Outbreak Response

BOSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated (Nasdaq: VRTX) today announced that the Vertex Foundation, a nonprofit charitable foundation, is making a $500,000 gift to Partners HealthCare, a Boston-based nonprofit hospital and physician network, to support the needs of patients and health care providers and bolster preparedness and response to the ongoing novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak through enhanced testing capacity.

“As a health care company and a member of the Boston and Massachusetts communities, we are committed to doing our part to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Expanding testing capacity is vital to limiting the spread of this virus and helping protect the health of our community. This is why the Vertex Foundation has made a $500,000 gift to Partners HealthCare, one of the largest providers of health care services in the Boston area, to facilitate coronavirus testing,” said Jeffrey Leiden, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer of Vertex.

Partners HealthCare President and CEO Anne Klibanski, M.D., added, “We are grateful that the Vertex Foundation is supporting the work of our clinicians and staff members with resources that will be targeted directly at patient care efforts as we respond to the COVID-19 outbreak.”

Vertex is continuing to monitor the evolving COVID-19 outbreak across the world and evaluating additional ways to support the communities in which they operate.

About the Vertex Foundation

The Vertex Foundation is a nonprofit charitable foundation. It seeks to improve the lives of people with serious diseases and in its communities through education, innovation and health programs. Established in 2017, the Foundation is a long-term source of charitable giving and is part of Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ corporate giving commitment. To learn more about the Vertex Foundation, visit https://www.vrtx.com/responsibility/vertex-foundation.

About Vertex

Vertex is a global biotechnology company that invests in scientific innovation to create transformative medicines for people with serious diseases. The company has multiple approved medicines that treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis (CF) — a rare, life-threatening genetic disease — and has several ongoing clinical and research programs in CF. Beyond CF, Vertex has a robust pipeline of investigational small molecule medicines in other serious diseases where it has deep insight into causal human biology, including pain, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency, and APOL1-mediated kidney diseases. In addition, Vertex has a rapidly expanding pipeline of genetic and cell therapies for diseases such as sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, Duchenne muscular dystrophy and type 1 diabetes mellitus.

Founded in 1989 in Cambridge, Mass., Vertex's global headquarters is now located in Boston's Innovation District and its international headquarters is in London, UK. Additionally, the company has research and development sites and commercial offices in North America, Europe, Australia and Latin America. Vertex is consistently recognized as one of the industry's top places to work, including 10 consecutive years on Science magazine's Top Employers list and top five on the 2019 Best Employers for Diversity list by Forbes. For company updates and to learn more about Vertex's history of innovation, visit www.vrtx.com or follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram.

About Partners HealthCare

Partners HealthCare is an integrated health care system, founded by Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital, that offers patients a continuum of coordinated and high-quality care. In addition to its two academic medical centers, the system includes community and specialty hospitals, a health insurance plan, a physician network, community health centers, home health and long-term care services, and other health care entities. Partners is a nonprofit organization that is committed to patient care, research, teaching, and service to the community. In addition, Partners is one of the nation’s leading biomedical research organizations and is a principal teaching affiliate of Harvard Medical School. For more information, please visit www.partners.org.

(VRTX-GEN)