Chart: "JMFF's Winners"
This article was originally published in Pharmaceutical Approvals Monthly
Executive Summary
Among the recipients of Michael J. Fox Foundation grants, ShanRx, in Woodside, Calif., is identifying neuroprotective drugs that work in the P13K signaling pathway. With the MJFF funding, the start-up aims to identify candidates and establish safety and efficacy in a rat model. Recently public Omeros, in Seattle, will get up to $465,000 from the foundation to further investigate a novel target (cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase type 7, implicated in movement disorders) it identified under an earlier MJFF deal. Another winner, California drug discovery and diagnostics play KineMed, is working on a way of showing that cerebrospinal fluid-based biomarkers can be used to track the progress of Parkinson's disease and possibly to discover new points of therapeutic intervention by shedding light on the pathogenesis of the disease.