Michael J. Fox Foundation Awards $3.8 Million To Drive Nine Industry Partnerships For Pre-Clinical Parkinson's Drug D...( NEW YORK July 21 -- The ...),Health

NEW YORK, July 21 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research has awarded research teams at nine biotech and pharmaceutical companies a total of $3.8 million for pre-clinical Parkinson's drug development projects. Funded investigations aim to push forward novel neuroprotective and improved symptomatic therapies as well as new strategies for addressing complications of treatment.

While MJFF accepts applications from industry under all of its programs, the Therapeutics Development Initiative (TDI) - first launched in 2006 - is the Foundation's only industry-exclusive funding stream. It is a key element of MJFF's strategy to 'de-risk' preclinical PD research for biotech and pharmaceutical companies, thus expanding industry investment in Parkinson's therapeutic development and helping push the most promising research to the next stage.

Projects selected for funding are listed below. Detailed information, including grant abstracts and researcher bios, is available on the Foundation's Searchable Database of Funded Grants. As with all MJFF grants, full funding is contingent on the achievement of predetermined, specific milestones and on researchers' agreement to make the results of their work available to the Parkinson's research community.

Neuroprotective Approaches

Pharmacodynamics of ReS9-S7, a first-in-class, disease-modifying drug candidate for treatment of Parkinson's disease

Gerard Griffioen, PhD, NV reMYND, Leuven, Belgium

Exploring curcumin and curcumin derivatives as putative epigenetic targets of histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibition in Parkinson's disease

Lawrence Helson, MD, Sign Path Pharma, Inc., Quakertown, Pe
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