A Medical Device Daily

Accelerate Brain Cancer Cure (ABC2; Burlingame, California), the Alzheimer’s Association (Chicago), the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (New York), and the Robert Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins (Baltimore) reported a collaboration to fund development of new therapeutic approaches with application to diverse brain diseases.

The organizations’ first common award program is seeking applications focused on technologies that can achieve selective targeting and/or delivery of therapeutic agents to specific regions or cells in the brain – including overcoming the limitations imposed by the blood-brain barrier – that can be applied in the clinical setting in the next 24 months.

“This collaboration offers a unique opportunity to help mobilize research with critical significance and near-term potential,” said John Reher, ABC2 executive director. “There are a number of new approaches that could have a meaningful impact on a range of brain diseases, including brain cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and ALS. By teaming together, we will be able to further leverage all of our resources, overcome hurdles and accelerate progress in bringing new, promising therapies to clinics and the patients.”

In October 2004, ABC2 convened a meeting of the Alzheimer’s Association, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Packard Center and others to identify common problems in the development of therapies for neuro-degenerative brain diseases. The group, named the Brain Trust, hopes to expand to include many other brain-related organizations, companies and universities in funding other collaborative efforts.

Funding is for one year, and the funds can only be applied to direct costs of research. Award applications must be received by 5 p.m. PDT on June 1 at ABC2.

In other grants/contracts news, Chronix Biomedical (San Jose, California) reported that it has received a letter from the German Ministry for Education and Research (BMBF) that it has been awarded a grant of up to EUR 500,000 ($650,000). The grant will fund the development of the company’s living test for bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), commonly referred to as “mad cow” disease.

The BioRegion GmbH board of reviewers recommended last September that the German government approve the grant supporting the commercialization of the Chronix Biomedical Gottingen Living Test (GLT), a BSE susceptibility test.

Dr. Howard Urnovitz, CEO of Chronix, said, “This award represents an international collaboration of corporate, academic and governmental bodies toward the common goal of improving public health. Additionally, it accomplishes the important milestone of scientific validation of our core technology and its commercial application in the marketplace.”

Currently, the only available BSE tests are post-mortem tests performed on brain tissue from animals that have been slaughtered.