Cures Within Reach & BioMotiv Announce a Research Partnership with Initial Focus on Lung Cancer

SKOKIE, Ill. - Sept. 16, 2013 - PRLog -- Cures Within Reach, a non-profit dedicated to saving lives through research projects that repurpose drugs and devices approved for one disease to create treatments in a different disease, is partnering with BioMotiv, the mission driven, for-profit accelerator of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development,  to drive repurposing research toward patient impact.  This initial partnership between the two organizations aims to advance Rediscovery Research™ projects targeted at lung cancer via a joint request for proposals issued to leading academic medical centers.

Drug repurposing is anecdotally described as "teaching old drugs new tricks" and is a practical approach to the development of treatments or cures for the thousands of diseases with no currently effective treatment.  While new drug development takes an average of 14 years, the repurposing of an existing compound can be accomplished in 2-3 years for a fraction of the cost because much of the safety and efficacy information is already known.

Together, the two organizations have the experience and expertise to take a repurposing idea and drive it all the way to patient use.  "Cures Within Reach's process for sourcing repurposing projects, combined with BioMotiv's commercialization expertise, will create a win for patients waiting for effective treatments," commented Dr. Bruce Bloom, President and Chief Science Officer of Cures Within Reach.

The partnership represents a new model of aligning non-profit and for-profit resources and organizations to address a challenging step in drug development, commonly known as the “valley of death.”

“Our goal is to develop new medicines for patients as quickly as possible,” added Baiju R. Shah, Chief Executive Officer of BioMotiv.  “This partnership will enable us to collaborate on promising opportunities that meet our mutual missions of advancing new therapies.”

Cures Within Reach and BioMotiv will jointly select and fund this Rediscovery Research, and both organizations will look at projects in any disease area.

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Contact

Cures Within Reach

Amy Conn

(847)745-1246

BioMotiv

Dawn Auvil

216-455-3217

dauvil@biomotiv.com

About Cures Within Reach

Cures Within Reach has been helping patients since 2005 by repurposing drugs and devices to quickly deliver safe and affordable treatments and cures for both common and rare disorders without currently effective treatments.  Through this work, Cures has emerged as a leader in the Repurposing Revolution, working to transform patient lives through research that looks backward in order to move forward. While patients with catastrophic diseases are suffering, we know that there are immediately usable medical solutions going unnoticed: familiar drugs and devices that have new uses and can improve length and quality of life today. By finding and funding clinical trials with this approach, Cures is creating a powerful new leg of pharmaceutical development, a unique innovation pathway to solve unmet medical needs via repurposing.  Learn more about Cures Within Reach at www.cureswithinreach.org.

About BioMotiv

BioMotiv is the mission-driven accelerator associated with The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development, a $250 million national initiative for advancing medicine centered at University Hospitals in Cleveland.  The focus is to accelerate breakthrough discoveries from research institutions into therapeutics for patients through an innovative model that efficiently aligns capital and collaborations.  The company leverages an experienced team and advisory board to select, fund, and actively manage and advance a portfolio of programs.  Products are advanced to clinical proof-of-concept and then partnered.   BioMotiv is interested in early-stage therapeutics in all disease areas.  Learn more at www.biomotiv.com.