Guest Post: MJFF’s Innovative, New Funding Program Addresses the Entire Therapeutics Pipeline

Did you know that the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research funds industry?

The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) is dedicated to finding a cure for Parkinson’s disease through an aggressively funded research agenda and to ensuring the development of improved therapies for those living with Parkinson’s today.

The MJFF is committed to sharing the risk of drug development with researchers from academia and industry in order to keep promising research moving forward along this important pipeline. To date, we have funded over $297 million in research, $77 million of which has been awarded to more than 160 unique, industry-led projects.

Today, we would like to invite the MassBio community to participate in the newest MJFF funding mechanism, the Therapeutic Pipeline Program (TPP) (read the announcement here). This program combines MJFF’s previous Therapeutics Development Initiative (TDI), Repositioning Drugs for PD, and Clinical Intervention Awards (CIA) programs into a single, streamlined funding opportunity.

The TPP seeks to support research projects along the entire drug development pipeline and is open to both industry and academic investigators. This comprehensive approach to funding encourages investigators to think holistically about the path towards therapeutic development, regardless of the current stage of their research.

MJFF will commit up to $10 million to TPP with the intention of supporting multiple awards. TPP will be launched annually with a two-stage review process, and Stage I Proposals are due September 12, 2012 by 6:00 pm ET.  To apply for the Therapeutics Pipeline Program, please visit https://www.michaeljfox.org/research/grant-detail.php?id=9.

To further explain the goals of this funding initiative and to answer applicant questions, MJFF held an informational conference call on August 1^st. If you missed the call, a recording and transcription of what was covered, as well as more information about the program, are available on the TPP Web page.

We look forward to working with you as we pursue a cure for Parkinson’s.

On August 1, 2012, MJFF held a 40-minute conference call to clarify and explain the goals of this funding initiative and answer applicant questions. The recording and transcription of this call may downloaded by clicking below:

• Download audio of the call
• Transcript of the call
• Q&A with MJFF´s Sonal Das, PhD

This Guest Post was written by the Michael J. Fox Foundation. In addition to their funding programs, MJFF works with industry in a wide variety of ways.  To learn more about these relationships, please visit their Opportunities for Industry page.

Sohini Chowdhury, Senior VP of Research Partnerships of The Michael J. Fox Foundation will speak at BioPharm America 2012 on Wednesday, September 19^th in a panel entitled “Early Stage Collaborations: When Do They Work?” Click here to learn more & to register for BioPharm America.

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