BioPontis Alliance for Rare Diseases and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) announce an agreement initially targeting the treatment of Huntington’s disease. The mission of BioPontis Alliance is to advance promising basic research into treatments for rare neurologic diseases. To broaden the funding basis of the mission, BioPontis Alliance has also established an impact investment portfolio subsidiary. The strategic collaboration between MGH and BioPontis Alliance will advance discovery research being conducted at MGH, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Northwestern University on sirtuin 2 deacetylase inhibitors to pre-clinical testing in order to develop a potential treatment of neurological disorders like Huntington’s disease.
Huntington's disease is a progressive genetic degenerative brain disorder that causes uncontrolled movements, emotional problems, and loss of thinking ability (cognition) and ultimately death. There are no therapies available for Huntington’s disease patients today.
The agreement establishes a pathway for the joint development of basic research toward a treatment candidate. It joins the basic research and early stage translation resources at MGH with the rare disease therapeutics development expertise at BioPontis Alliance.
“As clinicians and scientists, we are committed to not only unravel the basic mechanisms of diseases like Huntington’s disease, but to see this basic research fuel discovery of new therapeutics. This is a unique opportunity for us, to collaborate with BioPontis on one of the major long term aims of our research, namely translating ground-breaking basic findings into treatment opportunities for patients,” said Anne Young, MD, PhD, and former Chief of Neurology at MGH.
BioPontis Alliance is working to identify and develop a portfolio of new candidate medicines for rare diseases where there is no current treatment available.