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The Major Gift program of Families of SMA is a focused, strategic effort to obtain new and additional commitments for the purpose of funding the 2011/2012 Research Grant Awards portfolio. This $3 million commitment to fund the most promising SMA research available brings Families of SMA’s total research investment to over $50 million. Current Research Grant Awards categories include: $700,000 - New Basic Research Grants
Basic research helps solve critical unanswered questions in SMA biology. This information then reveals new and more effective ways of making SMA drugs, helping build a robust SMA drug pipeline. The current round of funding focuses on understanding why motor neurons are particularly sensitive to lowered levels of SMN protein, identifying new drug targets for SMA, and assessing new assays and biomarkers for SMA. $1.5 Million – Two New Drug Discovery Programs
Families of SMA has been investing in and advancing novel pre-clinical drug research since 2000. Our goal for drug discovery funding is to build a deep and diverse therapeutic pipeline to maximize the chances for success in finding a treatment for SMA. Click here to see the current drug pipeline. This new funding is critical as we begin to fund several programs concurrently which have different approaches to developing a therapy for SMA. This will both increase the chances of success and also accelerate the timeline to a treatment and a cure. $500,000 – Clinical Research Projects
The SMA community needs to be ready to conduct clinical trials on new SMA therapeutics by having validated trial endpoints, established means for patient recruitment, and experienced clinical trial sites. The funding goals in this area are to help develop the needed infrastructure to conduct pivotal FDA clinical trials on novel SMA drugs. Specific project award details for each of these three important research areas will be announced over the next two months.
To learn more about how you can support our Major Gift efforts, please contact Nancy McInroy, Director of Development, at nancy@fsma.org or via phone at (847) 709-6335. Thank you for believing in Families of SMA as an organization that you respect and trust.
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