Private Equity-Like Fund Aims to Speed Up Diabetes Research

Dave Johnson says his immediate reaction to his daughter’s diagnosis of Type 1 diabetes at age 4 was typical of any father’s.

“It was my baby girl, and my response was I’m going to fix it or pay someone to fix it,” Johnson, president and chief executive of the hotel management company Aimbridge Hospitality, said. “I dove in, spoke to some smart people. But then, I was hit between the eyes that there wasn’t a lot that I was going to be able to do.”

That was 22 years ago, and what he did do was volunteer with gusto, organizing fundraisers in the Dallas area where he lived and working his way up to membership on the executive committee of the international board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, the main nonprofit group making grants and evaluating research on the disease.