Charlie Munger, longtime right-hand man of Berkshire Hathaway boss Warren Buffett, expanded the U-M’s Central Campus with his new Munger Graduate Residence. In the long run, though, more locals may feel the impact of a much quieter, Buffett-funded innovation: a bargain birth-control device called Liletta.
Even before it became widely available here in January, fifty local women received the intrauterine device (IUD) from Planned Parenthood as part of a national clinical trial. Besides the two Ann Arbor Planned Parenthood locations, it has also been approved for use at the University of Michigan Health System. Planned Parenthood of Mid and South Michigan spokesperson Desiree Cooper says Liletta is “especially important” because it costs just $50–other IUDs start in the $500 range.
Liletta costs so little because its development was funded by a nonprofit called Medicines360. The organization says the $74 million in seed funding came from an anonymous donor–but tax filings show that the Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation has given in excess of that figure to Medicines360.
The foundation was named for–and long run by–Warren Buffett’s first wife. A strong supporter of abortion rights and birth control who died in 2004, Susan Buffett left the foundation nearly $3 billion in Berkshire Hathaway stock.
