Funds from non-profit groups flow to biotech R&D

Epix Pharmaceuticals said this morning that its development pact with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has mushroomed into a $50 million deal, adding $37.7 million to the $12 million already provided by the Foundation for new drug research. Epix will have to hit a series of goals for the money. And as a story in the Boston Globe makes clear, Boston-area biotech companies have been able to garner ever larger sums of cash to advance new therapies. Other examples include $25 million in research cash provided by the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, $8.5 million from the Muscular Dystrophy Foundation and $6 million from the Multiple Myeloma Research Foundation.

"It's becoming a significant method of funding," Robert Coughlin, president of the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, tells the Globe.

"By utilizing our proprietary in silico technology to model the CFTR ion channel, we were able to quickly discover novel CFTR modulators that are fueling our structure-based optimization approach," says Epix CEO Michael G. Kauffman.

- check out the press release [1]
- read the article [2] in the Boston Globe

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