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The Guardian - AU
The Guardian - AU
Politics
Adeshola Ore

‘Most extraordinary’: Geoffrey Cumming wows Melbourne with $250m medical donation

Melbourne Daniel Andrews Duncan Maskell Pandemic Australia
Geoffrey Cumming and his wife Anna
Geoffrey Cumming and his wife Anna have donated $250m to Melbourne’s Peter Doherty Institute for the Cumming Global Centre for Pandemic Therapeutics. Photograph: David Crosling/AAP

Little-known Canadian-born businessman Geoffrey Cumming has made one of the largest single philanthropic donations in Australian history, providing $250m for the creation of a global pandemic therapeutics centre in Melbourne.

The centre is designed to invest in developing treatments that can fight infectious diseases and will be named in honour of Cumming, who currently lives in Melbourne and whose donation will be used over a 20-year-period.

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