Cures Within Reach Announces 2016 Global Health Repurposing Awards Sponsors & Honorees

SKOKIE, Ill. - April 22, 2016 - PRLog -- Cures Within Reach (www.CuresWithinReach.org), the global philanthropic leader catalyzing repurposing research as a fast track to saving patient lives, along with presenting sponsor, Celgene, will host the 2016 Global Health Repurposing Awards on June 21, 2016, at 6 p.m. at the Montgomery Club in Chicago.

Held in conjunction with the 5^th Annual Drug Repositioning, Repurposing and Rescue Conference, the Global Health Repurposing Awards brings the stakeholders from science, business and philanthropy together to celebrate the promise of repurposing research and the collective commitment to creating treatments for the thousands of unsolved diseases that exist across the globe. Proceeds from this event support the mission and programs of Cures Within Reach.

Each year, the event honors three outstanding leaders for creating patient impact through scientific, business and philanthropic achievements. This year's featured awardees include:

Dr. Jerome B. Zeldis, CEO of Celgene Global Health & Chief Medical Officer of Celgene Corporation, who will receive the Patient Impact Legacy Award in honor of his work with Celgene therapies for diseases in the developing world.

Nick Sireau, Chairman of the AKU Society, with Professor Lakshminarayan Ranganath, who will receive the Patient Impact Philanthropic Award in honor of funding and testing nitisinone for Alkaptonuria.

Marty St. Clair, Viiv Healthcare, who will receive the Janet Davidson Rowley Patient Impact Research Award in honor of her discovery of AZT for HIV.

"Congratulations to this year's awardees for their commitment and tireless work to improve the quality and length of life for patients worldwide," said Dr. Kristina Allikmets, Vice President, Strategic and Professional Affairs, Takeda Pharmaceuticals and Global Health Repurposing Awards Event Committee Member. "We are pleased to be supporting the work of Cures Within Reach to drive treatments to more patients quickly through repurposing research."

The Global Health Repurposing Awards, formerly known as the BioScience Awards Midwest (BAM) was rebranded to better reflect the mission of Cures Within Reach. "As we continue to grow and work with researchers, clinicians and partners around the globe, we felt it was important to give the awards a name that highlights our passion and positions the event for the future," said Steve Braun, CLU, of Northwestern Mutual and member of the Cures Within Reach Executive Board.

Sponsors of the Global Health Repurposing Awards include Celgene (Premier Sponsor), Takeda Pharmaceuticals, (Diamond Sponsor), Horizon Pharma plc. (Gold Sponsor), PwC (Gold Sponsor), Beecken Petty O'Keefe & Company (Gold Sponsor), HuLow LLC (Silver Sponsor), Rediscovery Life Sciences (Silver Sponsor), Camargo Pharmaceutical Services (Bronze Sponsor) and Aptinyx (Bronze Sponsor). Sponsorship opportunities are still available at all levels.

The 2016 event committee includes Kristina Allikmets, Takeda Pharmaceuticals; Steven L. Braun, Northwestern Mutual; John Collins, iBio Institute; Dimitri Drone, PwC; Stephen Groft, NCATS, NIH; Edward Kahn, Rediscovery Life Sciences; Norbert Riedel, Aptinyx, Inc.; Michael S. Rosen, Rosen BioScience Strategies; Adriann Sax, Fortress Biotech; Nancy S. Searle, Civic Consulting Alliance; and Timothy P. Walbert, Horizon Pharma plc.

For more information or to register for the event visit: http://www.cureswithinreach.org/ghra-2016

ABOUT CURES WITHIN REACH
Cures Within Reach 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 repurposing research projects have generated 13 "new" treatments making an impact through off-label use in clinical practice or through a commercialization track.

ABOUT CUREACCELERATOR™
Cures Within Reach built CureAccelerator (www.CureAccelerator.org)to provide a global collaboration space and market for repurposing research that can deliver effective solutions to unsolved diseases. The CureAccelerator platform was built with a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, to explore whether drugs, devices and nutriceuticals approved for one or more human diseases can be repurposed to create "new" treatments in other diseases.  CureAccelerator has almost 1000 users who have proposed over 100 projects, of which more than a dozen are already funded and moving towards patient impact.

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