Summary

The GRAND Foundation

The GRAND Foundation:
Genomic Research Alliance for Neglected Diseases

An initiative from:
Christophe J. Echeverri, Ph. D.
CEO/CSO, Cenix BioScience GmbH

December 2006

The GRAND initiative aims to accelerate global biomedical research efforts to address one of humanity’s most daunting scientific, socioeconomic and moral challenges: that of protecting the world’s most vulnerable populations against the world’s deadliest diseases.
The fact that the world’s poorest populations continue to be ravaged by the most devastating infectious diseases is not new.
Nor is the fact that this problem has garnered a disproportionately and embarrassingly low level of biomedical R&D in recent decades.
All of us involved in any way with healthcare know this, and we all know why: poor economics in these countries limit their ability to pay for the products and even for the distribution infrastructures, leaving little or none of the profit potential needed as the economic basis to develop such products industrially. For all of us who have profited in any way from the healthcare industry, including biomedical companies, academicians, bankers, venture capitalists, lawyers, accountants, and consultants alike, addressing this situation is a moral imperative that also has worldwide socioeconomic and political ramifications.
The economic hurdle itself is now being overcome by the commitment in recent years of unprecedented levels of philanthropic funds from such visionary donors as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Warren Buffet. As a result, a growing list of public-private partnerships (PPP) has begun providing industry participants with attractive models to address these markets. Thus, as the first wave of successes is beginning to redress the basic economic equation, the field now faces a more fundamental and complex task:
How best to establish a well-balanced, global biomedical pipeline  dedicated to a sustained fight against neglected diseases?

The urgency of this challenge was highlighted in June 2005 when a consortium of globally acclaimed humanitarian organizations including Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) and OXFAM, 17 Nobel Prize winners and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative (DNDi), together launched an unprecedented Research Appeal to correct this continuing imbalance in global biomedical R&D. Industry observers have also begun to offer expert analyses of which contributions are most needed now to best complement and strengthen ongoing efforts. One key bottleneck remains the difficult transition that early-stage discoveries from exploratory, typically academic, efforts must inevitably make to progress into applied, industrial development programs. While this is addressed for “mainstream” diseases by the multitude of specialized biotechnology companies and the discovery units of large pharmas, equivalently robust and diversified capacities remain to be mobilized for neglected disease indications.
A direct answer to the DNDi Research Appeal, the GRAND initiative offers a unique opportunity to address this bottleneck by establishing the first non-profit biotech company focusing on genomics-driven drug discovery in the neglected disease field.
GRAND will be built from a proven biotech operation already specializing in this area, a pioneering biotech company specializing in genome-driven applications of RNAi gene silencing, the breakthrough technology behind the 2006 Nobel Prize for Medicine. By building around this ideal core, GRAND will make fullest use of today’s most advanced post-genomic R&D capabilities to establish a non-profit service platform accessible to all PPPs and academic groups focused on neglected diseases, while also carrying out its own therapeutic discovery programs in this area. In so doing, GRAND will increase the global capacity for industrial discovery and development activities for these indications by supporting, extending and complementing ongoing efforts worldwide.

GRAND will apply the professional practices of an industrial research service provider towards achieving its mission to strengthen the global neglected disease pipeline on a non-profit basis.
Although a non-profit organization, GRAND will follow the professional performance-based project management, stringent legal practices and financial controlling disciplines that underlie the success of industrial research service providers. With the overall mission guided by the central dogma of equitable access therapeutics for all the world’s populations, GRAND scientific programs will adhere to the highest of peer-reviewed and professional regulatory standards. As such, GRAND will not only follow in the footsteps of the Institute for OneWorld Health (iOWH), the first non-profit pharmaceutical company focused on neglected diseases, but will also add strong support and complementation to those programs. Indeed, while the main focus of iOWH activities is on the coordination of programs starting from late pre-clinical to market approval, GRAND will begin by strengthening the upstream steps of the pipeline, expanding the number of development opportunities that feed into iOWH and other similar programs.
GRAND research operations have ideal starting blocks from which to hit the ground running, with Founding Members bearing minimal risk.
GRAND will initially establish 2 Research Centres: one in North America and one in Europe. The latter will arise from the acquisition of Cenix BioScience, a leading biotech specialist in the use of RNAi-based genomics for drug discovery, whose ongoing malaria program has already established the scientific proof of concept for the GRAND R&D strategy. Importantly, this mature operation now in its 8th year, led by its founder/CEO/CSO, Dr. Christophe Echeverri, is among the few to have achieved full self-sustenance for the last 4 years running. Thus, since it is expected to continue as such after the GRAND conversion process, basic operations at the new GRAND EU Research Centre will require no additional operational capital for the foreseeable future. Once this first, solid operational base is established, the GRAND Foundation will turn its attention to expanding scientific programs, and building-up its financial base along with the North American Research Centre (location to be determined).

GRAND will represent a truly community-wide initiative, offering a vehicle for all participants in the biomedical research industry to contribute towards solving this embarrassingly long-standing problem.
Finally and perhaps most importantly, GRAND will offer a unique opportunity for all participants in the biomedical research industry to step forward and contribute in an effective way towards redressing our collective failure to equitably advance global health in recent decades. Through its innovative concept of a Distributed Cost Organization, GRAND will offer Foundation Members a chance to publicly exercise their corporate consciousness not only by contributing financially towards the GRAND endowment, but also through operational support to minimize GRAND running costs. In addition, GRAND will seek to create synergistic support structures with pharmaceutical members by securing long-term, “win-win” relationships wherever possible.
The GRAND Foundation will thus enable both private and institutional members to advance a mission of highest global priority, fulfilling a responsibility clearly shared by all within the biomedical research community.
If you are reading this, and especially if you are part of this community:  please take a moment to think how you can contribute, either as a Founding Member to help launch GRAND or as a regular Member to help sustain it thereafter.

Contact Information

Christophe J. Echeverri, Ph.D.
CEO/CSO,
Cenix BioScience GmbH
Tatzberg 47
Dresden 01307, Germany
T: +49-351-4173-0
F: +49-351-4173-109
e: echeverri@cenix-bioscience.com

Wayne Pambianchi
Executive Director,
Sage Group Inc.
3322 Route 22 West, Bldg 2, Suite 201
Branchburg, NJ 08876 US
T: +1 908-231-9644
F: +1 908-231-9692
e: wpambianch@aol.com