Society 4 min read By Arthur Ellington
Harold Hamm donates $150m to University of Oklahoma for diabetes research
The oil tycoon's gift is the largest in the university's history and will fund a new health campus and diabetes centre in a state ranked 49th for healthcare access.
Billionaire oil tycoon Harold Hamm has donated $150 million to the University of Oklahoma to fund diabetes research and healthcare training, in what the university says is the largest single gift in its history. Hamm, who was diagnosed with diabetes in his 50s, said the donation was driven by a personal commitment to changing the future of the disease.
«I've spent my life believing that when you see an opportunity to change the future, you don't stand on the sidelines — you act,» Hamm said in a statement. The gift makes him the university's largest individual donor, with lifetime giving approaching $250 million. In recognition, OU's Oklahoma City health campus will be renamed the Harold Hamm Health Campus.
The donation is split between two priorities. Some $100 million will support the campus's broader work, including training healthcare workers and recruiting researchers. The remaining $50 million will go to the Harold Hamm Diabetes Center, with $30 million directed to the priorities of its new director, John Kirwan, and $20 million for capital improvements and research infrastructure.
Hamm's connection to the centre dates back to a lead gift in 2007 that established it. He has since given more than $50 million to the centre, during which time National Institutes of Health research funding tied to it has grown from $5 million to $33 million, according to the university. He also created the Harold Hamm International Prize for Biomedical Research in Diabetes, which recognises lasting achievements in the field.
The donation lands in a state facing severe healthcare challenges. Oklahoma ranks 49th in the nation for healthcare, with gaps in access, a high rate of uninsured adults and poor health outcomes. The Oklahoma Hospital Association has reported critical shortages of healthcare workers across the state.
«If you look at hospitals in the state of Oklahoma, we have more than 90 hospitals that lose money on providing care to patients,» Rich Rasmussen, president and CEO of the Oklahoma Hospital Association, told local station FOX 25. «The only way they make up for that loss are in the supplemental Medicaid payments. These supplemental payments are the payments that Congress has cut.»
There are signs of progress. The campus has earned its first-ever ranking among the top 100 institutions for NIH funding, placing it in the top 4% of NIH-funded institutions nationwide. The Harold Hamm Health Campus brings together six health professions colleges and the university's graduate college, with more than 4,100 students, to build a pipeline aimed at addressing those issues.
Hamm, 80, founded Continental Resources in 1967 at the age of 21 and built the Oklahoma City-based company into one of the largest oil producers in North Dakota's Bakken shale. He still chairs the company, which has a market capitalisation of $27 billion, and his net worth is estimated at nearly $18 billion.
His influence extends to Washington. This summer he merged the oil advocacy group he founded in 2008, the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance, with the larger Independent Petroleum Association of America, and an IPAA spokesperson told Politico he has «expressed an interest» in becoming its chair. President Donald Trump has referred to Hamm as his «original oil guy». Hamm also backed the Affordable Insulin Now Act, a bill that sought to cap patients' out-of-pocket insulin costs at $35 a month.
Hamm said he hopes the gift will do more than fill gaps in the system. «My hope is that this gift will help make Oklahoma a place where the next great medical breakthrough happens — where diseases are prevented, lives are saved, and, one day, diseases like diabetes are cured,» he said.
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