The Wellcome Trust, established in 1936 as part of the will of Sir Henry Wellcome (1853-1936), has an asset base of £12 billion ($19.46 billion), due to the merger of Wellcome plc with Glaxo in 1995, which left the Wellcome Trust with a 4.7 per cent stake in the new company, Glaxo Wellcome. The Trust has an annual expenditure of £400 million ($648 million).

The directive of its founder was that his charity should support: ‘scientific research which may conduce to the improvement of the physical conditions of mankind’.