10 Things to Know About The Jackson Laboratory

Unless you’re in medical research or read the New Yorker, you may not have heard of The Jackson Laboratory (JAX) – an independent, non-profit 501 (c) (3) biomedical research institute with three main research centers (Bar Harbor, Maine; Sacramento, California, and Farmington, Connecticut) that contain more than 60 laboratories that perform research in six (6) areas:

• Cancer
• Development/Reproductive Biology
• Immunology
• Metabolic Diseases
• Neurobiology
• Neurobahavioral Disorders

10 key things to know about JAX are summarized as follows:

1. JAX is governed by 27 voting members of the governing party, 25 of whom are independent. The Form 990 lists 30 persons in the governing party (because of timing differences). 23 of the 30 or 77% of the directors are male while 7 of the 30 or 23% are female.
2. The mouse is the model JAX uses for research.
3. JAX maintains more than 11,000 genetically distinct strains of mice which are distributed worldwide (more than 50 countries) to more than 1,700 organizations conducting research.
4. JAX has about 70 investigative research teams.
5. JAX employs about 2,500 employees. In 2018, 2,557 employees received $206 million in compensation, which equates to an average compensation of $81,000.
6. In 2018, total revenue was $432 million (compared to $375 million the prior year), which came primarily from two sources:  genetic resources ($285 million) and government grants ($95 million).
7. Expenses in 2018 totaled $332 million (77% of revenue) – not including $35 million in depreciation – with the three largest expenses being compensation ($206 million), supplies ($58 million), and office-related expenses ($29 million).
8. Excess revenue over expenses was added to the general fund which had $740 million at year-end (most of which is unrestricted). The balance would have been higher but JAX reported a $38 million net unrealized loss on investments.
9. JAX has about $1 billion in assets that are concentrated in real estate and publicly traded stocks and cash.
10. Liabilities total about $260 million with the primary liability being $200 million in tax-exempt bonds.

To read the IRS Form 990 (2018), click here.