Cures Within Reach Launches 100 Projects in 100 Days Initative

SKOKIE, Ill. - Nov. 9, 2015 - PRLog -- Cures Within Reach, an organization working exclusively to catalyze repurposing research to quickly and affordably improve patient lives, is galvanizing researchers and clinicians to post new repurposing projects and ideas to CureAccelerator (https://app.cureaccelerator.org/registration) within the next 100 days to prove to the world that developing repurposed treatments is a critical piece of the healthcare puzzle.

Repurposing uses existing drugs, devices and nutriceuticals to create treatments for unsolved diseases. “We are rallying researchers, clinicians and their peers to post their repurposing proposals and ideas to CureAccelerator (https://app.cureaccelerator.org/registration) to help us reach our goal of 100 new projects within the next 100 days,” said Dr. Bruce Bloom, President and Chief Science Officer at Cures Within Reach. “Using this momentum and collaboration we can change how treatments are developed through repurposing in 2016 and beyond.”

The process is easy. Individuals simply create a profile on CureAccelerator (https://app.cureaccelerator.org/registration) and post their projects in a basic LOI format to join the movement to bring more cures to the 7,000 plus unsolved diseases that impact more than 500 million people across the globe.

“By posting repurposing projects, researchers and clinicians can show funders what’s possible, highlight their institutions expertise, and be the first to know about repurposing funding announcements released in 2016,” said Dr. Bloom.

During the 100 Projects in 100 Days campaign, many new funding opportunities will be released on CureAccelerator, including a partnership program between the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and Cures Within Reach, with additional support from the Mindset Foundation and Mitacs. This partnership seeks research repurposing drugs for rare diseases, and incentivizes cross-border collaboration.  Additional repurposing research funding opportunities will be released in specific geographic areas including the Mid-Atlantic and Midwest regions, and with disease-specific interests including Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis, Alzheimer’s and Glaucoma.

ABOUT CURES WITHIN REACH

Cures Within Reach (http://www.cureswithinreach.org) works to catalyze repurposing research to quickly and affordably improve patient lives. We accomplish this through collaborations that connect researchers and funding, by facilitating crowd sourcing and community, and by identifying alternative financing models and incentives.

Cures Within Reach’s medical research projects have generated 12 repurposing treatments making an impact in the following diseases through off-label use in clinical practice or through a commercialization track: autoimmune lymphoproliferative syndrome, familial dysautonomia, Types 1 and 2 diabetes, lung cancer, multiple sclerosis, prostate cancer, myelodysplastic syndrome and 4 additional pediatric auto-immune diseases.

The organization uses CureAccelerator™ (http://www.cureaccelerator.org)  to support repurposing research that can deliver effective solutions to unsolved diseases. Cures Within Reach received a $500,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to build CureAccelerator, the world’s first online, interactive platform dedicated to explore whether drugs, devices and nutriceuticals approved for one or more diseases can be repurposed to create “new” treatments in other diseases.

Visit us at www.cureswithinreach.org or follow us via Twitter.com/CuresWReach (http://www.twitter.com/CuresWReach), LinkedIn.com/company/cures-within-reach (http://www.linkedin.com/company/cures-within-reach), YouTube.com/cureswithinreach (http://www.youtube.com/cureswithinreach) or Facebook.com/P4Cures (http://www.facebook.com/P4Cures)