Press Release: Finalists Announced for CureAccelerator Live! Competition, Impacting Patients in Developing World

Adult, Clinical Trials, Developing World, Dr. Chang, Dr. Mehta, Dr. Osman, Drug, Infectious Disease, LMICs, Minority/Underrepresented, Oncology, Openbiome, Pediatric, SIDS Hospital and Research Centre

Finalists Announced for CureAccelerator Live! Competition, Impacting Patients in Developing World

Pitch Event on May 23 in Boston Features 5 Medical Repurposing Projects

March 20, 2019

Cures Within Reach, a leading global nonprofit focused on repurposing research as a fast track to impacting patients is holding CureAccelerator Live! Impacting Patients in the Developing World, its unique philanthropic pitch competition, on May 23, 2019 in Cambridge, MA at Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

Researchers and clinicians from 5 institutions will present their clinical repurposing research projects to community members representing pharma, biotech, academia, medicine, philanthropy and patient groups. The winning project will be selected by attendees that evening to receive up to $50,000 in funding. CureAccelerator Live! is being held in collaboration with Harvard’s Global Health Catalyst Summit. More info on Harvard’s Global Health Catalyst Summit is at https://www.globalhealthcatalystsummit.org/.

The five finalists invited to present their clinical trial projects are:

  • Aileen Chang, MD from George Washington University presenting “Repurposing a Flu Treatment For Severe Dengue Patients in Colombia”
  • Daniel Kalman, PhD from Emory University presenting “Repurposing a Generic Cancer Drug For Tuberculosis in South Africa”
  • Rajiv Mehta, MBBS, MD, DNB from SIDS Hospital & Research Centre presenting “Repurposing a Statin With a Nutraceutical For Chronic Pancreatitis Patients in India”
  • Indira Mysorekar, PhD from Washington University School of Medicine presenting “Repurposing an Anti-Malarial to Treat Zika Virus Infections in Pregnant Women in India”
  • Majdi Osman, MD, MPH from OpenBiome presenting “The THRIVE Study: Repurposing Fecal Microbiota Transplantation For the Treatment of Severe Acute Malnutrition in South Africa”

“The submissions were our strongest group yet, and our external grant review committee of 9 representing industry, academia/research and not-for-profits were faced with the difficult task of narrowing the field to 5 finalists. All of these projects deserve to be funded,” said Clare Thibodeaux, Director of Scientific Affairs at Cures Within Reach. “We can’t wait to showcase these clinical trials demonstrating positive patient impact through repurposing.” Early bird tickets for CureAccelerator Live! are available until May 1, 2019 when prices increase. For tickets and more information about the event, visit https://cureswithinreach.org/cal-dw.

The May 23 CureAccelerator Live! event marks the fourth time that Cures Within Reach has held this philanthropic pitch competition. The winner of the 2016 CureAccelerator Live! event led a clinical trial at the University of Illinois at Chicago that combined an approved medical device with a generic drug to repair vascular damage caused by chronic limb ischemia. The 2017 CureAccelerator Live! winner is currently conducting a clinical trial at the University of Michigan that repurposes drugs to help treat metastatic thyroid cancer. The 2018 CureAccelerator Live! winning project repurposes a multiple sclerosis drug in severe limb trauma at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. Additional information on these projects is at: https://www.cureswithinreach.org/research/current-research.

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