The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation partners with Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center

CLEVELAND, Oct. 24, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals (UH) Case Medical Center announced today a newly formed partnership that will leverage their combined expertise and resources to advance highly promising Alzheimer's disease drug discovery projects conducted in academic medical institutions nationwide.

The Harrington Discovery Institute (HDI), a non-profit organization formed in 2012 and centered at UH Case Medical Center in Cleveland, Ohio, supports the efforts of physician-scientists to advance drug therapies that will improve lives of their patients. In a similar mission, the ADDF focuses its funding on preclinical drug research and early-stage clinical trials that hold great promise but may not be far enough along in the drug development pipeline to receive financial support from the pharmaceutical industry or other partners. The ADDF bridges this critical gap in funding, enabling the scientific pursuit of many innovative and novel therapies that might otherwise go unexplored.

"We are honored to join forces with ADDF in our mission to advance innovative cures for Alzheimer's disease," said Jonathan Stamler, MD, and Director of the Harrington Discovery Institute. "In this new partnership, projects selected to become ADDF Harrington Scholars will get funding from the ADDF and staged support from experts in pharmaceutical development  from the HDI's Innovation Support Center to chart a path from the bench to the clinic," added Dr. Stamler, who is also the Robert S. and Sylvia K. Reitman Family Foundation Distinguished Chair in Cardiovascular Innovation and Director of the Institute for Transformative Molecular Medicine at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and UH Case Medical Center.

"We are pleased to partner with the Harrington Discovery Institute," said Howard Fillit, MD, Executive Director, ADDF.  "Researchers selected as ADDF Harrington Scholars will benefit from the HDI's expertise, accelerating their discoveries into the clinic."

Principle Investigators (ADDF Harrington Scholars) will also have facilitated access to BioMotiv, a for-profit commercialization company associated with the Harrington Project for Discovery & Development and aligned with HDI in mission and structure. BioMotiv was created to advance discoveries by academic researchers in areas of unmet need.

Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
The mission of the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) is to accelerate the discovery and development of drugs to prevent, treat and cure Alzheimer's disease, related dementias and cognitive aging. The ADDF has granted more than $60 million to fund over 400 Alzheimer's drug discovery programs in academic centers and biotechnology companies in 18 countries. For more information about the ADDF, please visit www.alzdiscovery.org.

Harrington Discovery Institute at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, launched in February of 2012 with a generous gift from the Harrington Family of Hudson, Ohio, is part of a $250 million national model to accelerate the development of medical breakthroughs by physician-scientists into medicines that benefit patients.  The model aligns, through mission and structure, nonprofit and for-profit resources into a new system for drug development. It addresses a set of major challenges in medicine that have created a development gap for promising discoveries and contributed to a long-term decline in new medicine approvals.  Included in the model is the Cleveland-based development company BioMotiv, a for-profit entity created by Cleveland's University Hospitals health system in 2012.  For more information about the Harrington Discovery Institute, please visit HarringtonDiscovery.org

SOURCE University Hospitals Case Medical Center