Did you know that each year there are some 900,000 new discoveries in basic science published in peer-reviewed scientific journals that are never advanced toward new patient treatments? This means that the millions of dollars spent on medical research by the NIH and others rarely benefits patients? This gap between basic scientific discoveries and commercial drug development is known in the industry as the “valley of death.”

To understand what has created this gap, it’s helpful to take a look at the history of drug development in this country and how we have evolved to the point where so little of our nation’s investment in basic research is bringing any practical benefit to patients like you.

In the 1950s, the number of academic discoveries was more manageable and could more easily find its way to industry channels to be turned into treatments.

Today, the sheer volume of incremental discoveries makes monitoring these discoveries for potential commercial drug development virtually impossible creating this “valley of death."

But even the most diligent mining of this information isn’t enough to set the wheels in motion for commercial drug development.

What’s missing?

Two things are missing: Clear ownership of the intellectual property and, rigorous industry-standard data. Without it, most if not all of these discoveries will never be evaluated for commercial development.

The MRF is filling this gap in two ways: First, by funding the thousands of dollars per discovery in legal and patent fees to protect the intellectual property developed in our funded labs and, second by funding and managing what we call our “virtual biotech.” At a cost of as much as $2 million per discovery, this “virtual biotech” is producing the industry-standard data necessary for consideration by the pharmaceutical industry for commercial development.

As you can see, it's not just about what we do (myelin repair) that sets us apart from other research organizations but how we do it that really pushes us out in front of the pack.

The only rate-limiting step for our work at this time will be our ability to successfully raise $80 million over the next five years to underwrite the costs of these two critical activities: IP protection and building that industry-standard data set.

It costs $XXXXX to patent a target it costs $XXXX to create industry standard data on one discovery.

Based on our success to date and the help of hundreds of supporters like you, I believe we can meet our 2014 goal of partnering with a commercial entity to launch the first myelin repair clinical trial.

You can help us in this goal by helping to fund one patent application today.

If you have not already made a gift to the MRF, please do so today. And if you are not able to lend a hand in this way, tell others in your personal and professional networks who can. Without you, our work cannot move forward.