The FMI is member of EU-LIFE, an alliance of leading life sciences research centres in Europe.

[citation needed] From 2014 to 2019, the FMI had the highest success rate for ERC grant applications of all European institutions.

[15] Most FMI group leaders have adjunct or full professorships at the University of Basel in the Natural Sciences Faculty.

The FMI was founded in 1970, a hundred years after Miescher's discovery, as a collaborative effort of two Basel-based pharmaceutical companies, Ciba Aktiengesellschaft and J. R. Geigy Ltd.[19] The founding charter describes the aims of the institute as to "pursue and promote basic research in the fields of biochemistry and medicine..." and "...to provide young scientists from all over the world with an opportunity to participate in scientific research.

He was an expert in tuberculosis[21][22] and was also instrumental in the founding of the Institut Suisse pour les Recherches Experimentales sur la Cancer (ISREC), Epalinges, Switzerland.

The award is granted every year by the Swiss Society for Biochemistry[25] to the best scientific contribution in this field.