Cures Within Reach Secures Funding for its Impact Awards Program

CHICAGO - Sept. 18, 2018 - PRLog -- Cures Within Reach (CWR), a leading global nonprofit organization focused on repurposing research as a fast track to impacting patients' lives, today announced the first two philanthropic partners that are supporting the launch of its Impact Awards. CWR's newest program provides funding to address the unique challenges faced by repurposing startups.

Working in close collaboration with partners seeking to serve as catalysts in specific geographic or therapeutic areas, CWR also announced today that the Mid-Atlantic Region is its second focal point for the Impact Awards program. Last month, CWR named ResQ Pharma, Inc., a Chicago-based biopharmaceutical company focused on ensuring reliable global access to its life-saving LipidRescue™ Therapy, as its first Impact Award recipient.

"It was natural for CWR to begin in our own 'backyard' as we nurture this new funding mechanism," explained Cures Within Reach President and COO Barbara Goodman. "Support from the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust is helping to build a sustainable philanthropic model for CWR in a way that is also additive to the Searle Funds' other grantees."

"Supporting biomedical startups in Chicago advances the strategic goals of our biomedical initiative as we seek to strengthen and enhance our region's biomedical sector," said Renee Michaels, executive director of Kinship Foundation, which manages the institutional philanthropy of the Searle family, including Chicago-based grant making through the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust. "And we are enthusiastic about the Cures Within Reach new Impact Awards program that assists startups to repurpose therapies for new uses. CWR's ability to leverage existing research and partnerships in order to impact patients faster and create economic opportunities for these repurposing startups is a model with great promise."

Cures Within Reach will support repurposing startups in geographic or therapeutic areas according to the interests of Impact Awards partners. Thanks to the generosity of Maryland-based Kahlert Foundation, entrepreneurs located in Mid-Atlantic states will now benefit from the Impact Awards program.

"The Kahlert Foundation has been supporting Cures Within Reach for the past four years. Repurposing products that are already approved, safe and effective just makes good sense to us.  We see this new program as a wonderful example of CWR's growth, and we are thrilled to help bring the Impact Awards to the Mid-Atlantic region," said Greg Kahlert, president of The Kahlert Foundation. "We hope that other philanthropists will join us to bring the Impact Awards to their regions, or to support repurposing startups within disease-specific areas that are important to them."

"This is a donor-driven program, and we are ready to expand," added Goodman. "If our next philanthropic partner wants to help emerging companies in New England, California or any other region in the world, or within a specific disease area, we will explore opportunities to partner on behalf of repurposing entrepreneurs."

About the Impact Awards
Unlike its other funding mechanisms for researchers at academic institutions, the Impact Awards are intended for startups that have identified repurposing-specific commercial opportunities. CWR recognizes that a repurposing startup could be just a single milestone away from moving toward attracting a significant infusion of capital or achieving commercial success.

Impact Awards funds must be earmarked for clearly defined projects that could result in high-impact, value-enhancing R&D and/or business milestones. Another distinguishing criterion is the startup provides a minimum of a 100% cash match of the amount awarded through the Impact Awards program. Application is by invitation only from Cures Within Reach.

About Cures Within Reach
Cures Within Reach (CWR) is a US-based global philanthropic leader that improves patient quality and length of life by leveraging the speed, safety and cost-effectiveness of medical repurposing research, driving more treatments to more patients more quickly. CWR catalyzes research to facilitate and validate repurposing opportunities that create clinical impact, and enables and facilitates conversation and action among stakeholders that help transform healthcare through repurposing opportunities. Through repurposing, CWR drives both market impact and health savings to patients and patient groups, from academia/researchers, with payers and the healthcare industry and with support from the government, philanthropy and others. CWR's repurposing research projects have generated "new" treatments in over a dozen indications, making patient impact through off-label use in clinical practice or through a commercialization track.

CWR currently has a global portfolio of 18 repurposing research projects, as well as more than 180 repurposing research projects available for funding in a wide range of diseases on its CureAccelerator® site. Visit https://cureswithinreach.org or follow CWR via Twitter @CuresWReach, LinkedIn (LinkedIn.com/company/cures-within-reach), YouTube (YouTube.com/cureswithinreach) or Facebook (Facebook.com/CuresWithinReach).