2 Fox Focus | This Is Our Moment
Message from the CEO:
This Is Our Moment
By Debi Brooks, CEO and Co-Founder
THE MICHAEL J. FOX FOUNDATION( MJFF) continues to build on recent breakthroughs that bring us closer to better therapies and enhanced understanding of Parkinson’ s disease. Our ambitious research agenda— and our confidence that we can achieve even greater acceleration— have been critical to getting us to this point.
I think back to when Michael and I started the Foundation. The same values that drove us to be bold, take risks and do whatever it takes to speed real results for people with Parkinson’ s still hold true. Traditionally, patient-centric organizations focus on direct services in support of patients— valued and muchneeded work that is part of our mission as well. But as MJFF began to take shape, we saw an opportunity to do more: Focus our efforts on funding research for better Parkinson’ s treatments. It sounds simple but it was quite novel back then.
As CEO, I’ m often asked about the biggest risks the Foundation has taken. One of those
risks we took early on: Investing time and resources to build the case that existing tests and research tools didn’ t truly reflect what people with PD experience in their day-to-day lives. This poor understanding of the disease had created roadblocks for both care and drug development. We determined that the only way to properly study the disease was in real patients— this was the risk that would give novel treatments a better shot at success.
In 2010, we launched our landmark Parkinson’ s Progression Markers Initiative( PPMI), which today is the largest Parkinson’ s biorepository and deepest longitudinal dataset of PD in the world( turn to page 11 to read more about our next PPMI expansion). This was our first“ If not us, who?” moment.
Our cover story touches on more“ If not us, who?” moments: The Foundation sits at the helm of a robust treatment pipeline, monitoring progress on more than 150 drugs and therapies. We stand on the precipice of the first generation of treatments that may