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Hey Nobel Prize in Medicine! You’ve got competition. This morning, a bevy of techoscenti billionaires including Mark Zuckerberg and Sergey Brin announced the first recipients of their Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, a $3 million award  ”recognizing excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and extending human life.” This year, there are 11 recipients, meaning a total $33 million payout, but in the future five annual awards will be planned, totalling $15 million.

The award is the brainchild of billionaire Yuri Milner, an early Facebook investor, who gives a similar prize in physics. Aside from Brin and Zuckerberg, he is joined by: Anne Wojcicki, Brin’s wife and the chief executive of 23andMe, the consumer genetics startup; Priscilla Chan, Zuckerberg’s wife and a physician who is in residency; and Art Levinson, the chairman of the board at Apple who previously, as chief executive of Genentech, was the most respected leader in the pharmaceutical industry. The awards are being announced formally later today at  conference led by Susan Desmond-Hellmann, once Levinson’s right-hand woman and now chancellor of UCSF.

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