Michael J. Fox Foundation Awards $2.4M For Parkinson's Research

The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) for Parkinson's Research today announced approximately $2.4 million in total funding to nine research teams under its Target Validation initiative. This annual MJFF program provides intellectual and financial resources to help push potential Parkinson's drug targets forward toward clinical trials and ultimately the nearly 5 million Parkinson's patients worldwide.

Founded in 2000, the foundation is named for the famed actor who suffers from Parkinson's. The foundation says it has funded $123 million in research to date.

"The discovery of a new potential therapeutic target generates great excitement among patients and researchers," says Katie Hood, CEO of The Michael J. Fox Foundation. "But to attract an industry sponsor with the resources and expertise to chaperone it through optimization, preclinical work and ultimately clinical testing, that target needs a critical mass of evidence behind it, demonstrating that it is involved in the disease and that manipulating it impacts symptoms or progression. MJFF's Target Validation program helps accumulate this evidence, reducing the risk of investment for industry and building the case for prioritization of the
most promising targets in the pipeline."

Target validation is an essential and historically under-resourced phase of drug development in which researchers work to determine whether a molecule or mechanism of interest is a true drug target, the foundation says. While researchers have continued to identify novel targets in recent years through genetic, biochemical and epidemiological studies, a lack of funding for validation studies has long been a major roadblock to the efficient translation of these discoveries into practical therapies that benefit people living with Parkinson's.

Projects funded in this cohort of Target Validation awardees fall into three categories: targets for therapies to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's; approaches focused on dyskinesias, the excessive, uncontrollable movements brought on by long-term dopamine replacement therapy; and targets with potential to slow or stop progression of Parkinson's, something no currently approved treatment has been proven to do.

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