The Myelin Repair Foundation (MRF) is a non-profit medical research foundation dedicated to accelerating basic medical research into myelin repair treatments that will dramatically improve the lives of people suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS).
To achieve this goal, MRF has developed a unique business/science hybrid model for medical research that is speeding the time to drug discovery by as much as 200%. This new research model, called the Accelerated Research Collaboration™ (ARC™) model, is based on three key elements:
- Collaboration: Bringing the best researchers together
MRF has brought together five of the world’s leading neuroscientists approaching the study of myelin from five different perspectives — immunology, genetics, developmental biology, molecular biology and proteomics — in an outcome-driven research plan.
- Acceleration: Speeding up the research process
Since beginning its research program in 2004, the MRF scientific team has identified more than a dozen new myelin repair drug targets and 10 new research tools/assays that may be applied to all neurological disease research.. MRF has filed for eight patents on these discoveries. When compared to the world's greatest research universities, the MRF scientific team has had five times as many invention disclosures and more than three times as many patent applications per million dollars in research expenditures.
- Results: Driving discoveries into the drug pipeline
MRF has an aggressive intellectual property (IP) protection program that enables the organization to more effectively engage with pharmaceutical companies and to license discoveries for further drug development and clinical trials. Licensing revenues will be invested in ongoing research programs.
Revolutionizing All Medical Research
MRF’s ARC model has the potential to speed not only multiple sclerosis research, but all medical research, bringing treatments to those who suffer from other chronic or debilitating diseases for which there are no effective treatments or cures.
