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Friday, November 21, 2008
The Pitch
Prize4Life seeks funding for ALS Biostatistics Project
By Mass High Tech Staff
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Prize4Life Inc.
Headquarters: Cambridge
Employees: 4
Founded: 2006
Web: www.prize4life.org
E-mail: dvohra@prize4life.org
Phone: 617-500-7527
The Pitch: Prize4Life is seeking funding for its Biostatistics Project.
PITCHING THE TECHNOLOGY
Prize4Life is a nonprofit organization dedicated to accelerating the discovery of treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease. The nonprofit was founded by a group of business school students after one of them, Avichai Kremer, was diagnosed with the disease at the age of 29. Prize4Life offers funding to scientists working on problems preventing the discovery of an effective ALS treatment. Prize4Life says it aims to supplement and complement existing resources by attracting new minds, money, and media to the fight against ALS. Prize4Life’s Biostatistics Project is an initiative to pool data from concluded ALS clinical trials into a central database available to researchers worldwide. The combined data from the clinical trial results is intended to provide the largest single source of data on ALS patients available to researchers.
PITCHING THE PEOPLE
Who is on the management team? Avichai Kremer, CEO; James Giessler, president and chief development officer; Melanie Leitner, chief scientific officer; Andrea Marano, CFO (volunteer); Divya Vohra, communications manager; and Guy Yamen, chief of strategy (volunteer).
Have executives been involved in a cashout prior to this venture? No.
Who is on the board of advisers? Robert Brown, Phil Lucie Bruijn, Valerie Estess, Adrian Ivinson, Tom Maniatis, David Meeker, and Al Sandrock.
PITCHING THE BUSINESS
How much investment is being sought? Prize4Life is seeking $400,000 to develop a pool of ALS clinical trial data for global researchers to tap.
What partnerships, collaborations or affiliations are already in place? Prize4Life says it collaborates with the Alzheimer Research Forum, Project ALS, the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, and the ALS Association.
List any federal or state grants, contracts or awards received: None.
What’s the market size being pursued? Prize4Life estimates its market at about $2 billion.
Who are the likely competitors, direct or indirect? Prize4Life says competing databases do not exist, and it seeks to collaborate with other ALS-related organizations, rather than compete with them.
Is the company profitable? No.
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