Lario Therapeutics – a biopharmaceutical company developing precision medicines for epileptic and neurological disorders – announced it has been awarded a $6 million grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). This program is in collaboration with the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, which will also be delivering key science as part of the grant.
The grant will be used for funding Lario’s preclinical program investigating selective CaV2.3 calcium channel inhibition as a novel and disease-modifying approach for treatment of Parkinson’s disease. And there is extensive literature linking calcium channels to pathology of the disease, and it has been demonstrated in preclinical experimental studies that the deletion of CaV2.3 could have a protective effect against Parkinson’s disease progression. Lario is also partnering with Professor Richard Wade-Martins and the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC) for the study, for the evaluation of Lario compounds in state-of-the-art patient-derived stem cell models of Parkinson’s disease.
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder taking place when brain cells that make dopamine, which coordinates movement, stop working or die. And the symptoms are lifelong and worsen over time, including motor disfunction, such as tremor, slowness, stiffness, walking and balance problems, and problems like depression and memory problems. Over 10 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with Parkinson’s, with no current cure.
KEY QUOTES:
“We are grateful to MJFF for their funding support for Lario’s efforts to test and develop a potential new therapy designed to prevent the loss of neurons that causes Parkinson’s disease. If our research is successful, this will represent an important new treatment option for patients.”
– Tom Otis, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience UCL and Chief Scientific Officer of Lario Therapeutics
“This significant funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation will aid the work out of our therapeutic pipeline and the work we have achieved so far in advancing research in the field. We would like to thank the MJFF team for their support. This grant will help drive our ambition to progress our Cav2.3 program swiftly towards the clinic, to provide a new, effective treatment option for people with Parkinson’s disease.”
– Henning Steinhagen, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Lario Therapeutics
“MJFF is dedicated to funding innovative research, such as the work done at Lario Therapeutics, to develop a pipeline of novel therapies that can improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease. We look forward to seeing the results of Lario’s research on CaV2.3 as a novel disease-modifying approach for Parkinson’s.”
– Gaia Skibinski, Ph.D., director of research programs at MJFF
“I am excited to partner with the team at Lario Therapeutics – having grant funding from MJFF is a testament to the impact this study aims to bring to patients. Our research centre works to understand the development of Parkinson’s, with the ultimate aim of targeting the molecular mechanisms of disease, to prevent disease onset or to delay progression. We see great potential in the CaV2.3 programme and are very happy to collaborate to study patient stem cell-derived neuronal models as part of the research.”
– Richard Wade-Martins, MA, DPhil, Professor of Molecular Neuroscience, University of Oxford, and head of the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre
