Dr. James Beck 00:00:00
Bringing a drug to market can take fifteen to thirty years, cost billions of dollars, and involve collaborations across many researchers and organizations.
Hi, I'm James Beck, Chief Scientific Officer of the Parkinson's Foundation. We know that research is an essential part of finding the cure for Parkinson's disease. But how can we speed up the process? If you've been part of our PD world for a while, you might have already noticed that launches of new Parkinson's medications are few and far between. The Parkinson's Foundation is working to accelerate PD drug breakthroughs through our new Venture Philanthropy Fund.
Venture philanthropy is when an organization invests directly in companies to inspire direct change that works toward achieving a larger philanthropic goal. Through venture philanthropy, the Parkinson's Foundation is directly funding cutting-edge Parkinson's disease therapeutic development being conducted by commercial organizations.
The Parkinson's Foundation works to solve Parkinson's disease by taking a big-picture approach to research and closing the gaps in knowledge about this disease.
While our annual research grants and our genetic study, PD GENEration, make progress toward understanding the biology of Parkinson's, there remains a shortage in the development of new drugs for Parkinson's itself.
Pursuing this critical research is often expensive and high risk. Bringing a drug to market can take fifteen to thirty years, cost billions of dollars, and involve collaborations across many researchers and organizations. Without continued investment in the development and creation of new medications, people with Parkinson's will likely have to continue to rely on carbidopa-levodopa, a therapy that is more than fifty years old and has significant limitations.
Our Venture Philanthropy Fund works to accelerate the breakthroughs and treatments that people with Parkinson's disease need today.
Our goal is to provide targeted funding to biotech companies looking to develop new therapies to treat and ultimately cure Parkinson's disease. Our strategy is simply to accelerate innovative Parkinson's research to drive advancements toward new and better therapies.
Dr. James Beck 00:02:06
Parkinson's research is underfunded. In recent years, several large pharmaceutical companies have exited the neuroscience space, usually following the failure of a specific therapy in clinical trials.
Smaller biotech companies are active but often do not have the funding necessary to propel early-stage development. This leads to a funding gap in Parkinson's research, leaving potentially promising therapies to languish.
We will work to course-correct the systemic lack of funding through our targeted venture philanthropy efforts. We also hope that funding this new type of research will help the global PD research community better understand this disease.
In 2022, we formed a strategic partnership with Parkinson's UK to boost investments in groundbreaking research. Over the next three years, the Parkinson's Foundation will invest a minimum of $3 million into the Parkinson's Virtual Biotech, the drug development collaboration between the Parkinson's Foundation and Parkinson's UK. This investment will accelerate research into scientific breakthroughs that have the greatest potential to become life-changing medications.
Currently, the Parkinson's Virtual Biotech is fast-tracking nine promising projects in Parkinson's research. One of these projects tests the effectiveness of an antipsychotic drug to manage hallucinations, a symptom that up to seventy-five percent of people with Parkinson's may experience.
Another project is studying possible therapies to restore mitochondrial function in the brain, which can help slow or maybe even stop Parkinson's disease.
The Venture Philanthropy Fund is part of the Parkinson's Foundation's Reach Further campaign. This four-year campaign will raise $20 million to accelerate new treatments and investigate early-stage drug discovery and development.
Find out how you can help support the Parkinson's Foundation Venture Philanthropy Fund at Parkinson.org/venturephilanthropy.
