New Partnership to Provide Drug Discovery Resources for Neurofibromatosis Research Community

The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) and The Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) today announced a partnership to provide CTF’s scientific network access to a virtual network of drug discovery experts and contract research organizations (CROs) through the ADDF ACCESS program.  CTF’s mission is to find effective treatments for the genetic disorder neurofibromatosis (NF), which can cause tumors to grow throughout the body and affects one in 3,000 people. Through the effective selection of CROs and use of their services, NF researchers may be able to accelerate their research and bring novel therapies to patients faster.

“The ADDF is excited to make this resource available to the broader community and promote collaboration between scientists working in different disease areas,” said Howard Fillit, MD, executive director and chief science officer of the ADDF.

ADDF ACCESS gives academic and small biotechnology research communities access to a network of more than 130 CROs and the services they provide. The portal allows users to customize their search for CROs based on drug discovery area and access a virtual network of drug discovery experts and educational resources for guidance on CRO selection and research design.

To promote collaboration between scientists working in different disease areas, the ADDF is building a consortium of nonprofit partners. To date, BrightFocus Foundation and Beyond Batten Disease Foundation (BBDF) have provided support for the expansion of ADDF ACCESS. The Children’s Tumor Foundation is the third member of this consortium and extends the network beyond neurodegenerative diseases.

“We’re very proud to partner with the ADDF in advancing opportunities in medical research, and in particular the benefits this brings to researchers in the field of neurofibromatosis,” said Annette Bakker, PhD, President and Chief Scientific Officer of the Children’s Tumor Foundation. “The seeds of this collaboration were planted through a serendipitous meeting at last year’s FasterCures conference, and we’re thrilled to be working closely with a like-minded organization like the ADDF. “

This partnership is announced in conjunction with the launch of this year’s application process for the Children’s Tumor Foundation Drug Discovery Initiative (DDI). The DDI program funds early-stage research into promising compounds, and it is a condition of funding that researchers make their tools (candidate drugs, animal models, cell lines, etc.) publicly available for collaboration with other researchers.  ADDF-ACCESS will help DDI applicants determine whether a CRO is necessary to accomplish their research goals and to choose an appropriate CRO to work with.

About The Children’s Tumor Foundation

The Children's Tumor Foundation is dedicated to finding effective treatments for the millions of people worldwide living with neurofibromatosis (NF), a term for three distinct disorders: NF1, NF2, and schwannomatosis. NF can cause tumors to grow on nerves throughout the body and can lead to blindness, bone abnormalities, cancer, deafness, disfigurement, learning disabilities, and disabling pain. NF affects one in every 3,000 people, more than cystic fibrosis, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, and Huntington's disease combined. The Children's Tumor Foundation funds critical research into neurofibromatosis. In addition to benefiting those who live with NF, this research is shedding new light on several forms of cancer, brain tumors, bone abnormalities, and learning disabilities, ultimately benefiting the broader community. For more information, please visit www.ctf.org.