THE FOX FOCUS ON RESEARCH
FOX TRIAL FINDER ANALYSIS SHEDS
LIGHT ON PARKINSON’S STUDIES
AND VOLUNTEERS
THE FOX FOCUS ON THE COMMUNITY
GALVANIZED TO CURE PARKINSON’S
by christina brdey
S
ince its launch in 2011, Fox
Trial Finder, The Michael J. Fox
Foundation’s online clinical trial
matching tool, has registered
more than 40,000 potential research
volunteers and lists nearly 450 ongoing
Parkinson’s studies in nine countries. In
February 2014, the Journal of Parkinson’s
Disease published the first peer-reviewed
paper on Fox Trial Finder. Baseline
analysis found:
›Family connections to Parkinson’s may
motivate research participation among
control volunreers. Of 19,243 registrants
with PD, only 12 percent listed an
immediate family history of disease,
while 49 percent of participants without
PD reported a family connection.
› Volunteers’ proximity to trials limits
study enrollment. The findings
confirmed a geographical imbalance
with only 10 of the top 20 areas of study
sites also being in the top 20 areas of
volunteers, making the case for use of
technology to involve participants in
areas without traditional “brick-andmortar” studies.
› Time since diagnosis does not appear
to be an eligibility factor in the listed
studies. Most studies were recruiting
for patients with a Hoehn & Yahr score
(a measure of disease progression) of
1 or 2, but 66 percent of listed studies were recruiting for patients with a
score of 5. The average age at diagnosis
was 58 years.
Learn more about how you can become part of the pursuit of a cure
at foxtrialfinder.org.
RARE COLLABORATION AMONG
COMPETITORS continued from page 2 ›
“The Michael J. Fox Foundation is
fostering conversations that may not
otherwise happen but are essential to
moving this research forward,” said
Warren Hirst, PhD, group leader in the
Pfizer Neuroscience Research Unit. “By
working together we can overcome
obstacles and make progress towards
new therapies.”
12 THE FOX FOCUS
Next Steps
The companies will announce initial
results from the LRRK2 Safety
Initiative testing later this year. Their
studies continue as they strive to answer
questions surrounding the use of these
drugs to treat Parkinson’s.
“The best outcome would be for
these companies to stop working
together because we’ve solved for some
of these unknowns,” said Todd Sherer,
PhD, MJFF CEO. “We want them to go
back to their labs and race to the finish
of getting drugs closer to patients.”
Last November, hours before MJFF’s annual gala fundraiser, A Funny Thing Happened on
the Way to Cure Parkinson’s, Michael J. Fox and Ryan Reynolds sat down with fellow MJFF
Board member and TODAY Show co-host Willie Geist — whose father, Bill Geist, also has
Parkinson’s — for a segment on family and PD. The trio shared stories about how they’ve
each integrated PD into their own family dynamic. “It kind of galvanized everybody else,
to sort of seek resources,” Reynolds noted of his family’s response to his father’s
diagnosis. “And for us, it’s in a strange way, it’s really kind of brought us together.”
THE COUNTDOWN TO
TOUR DE FOX IS ON.
ALL THAT’S
MISSING IS YOU.
Join endurance athlete and MJFF staff member
Sam Fox (no relation to Michael) as he makes his way
to your state this summer.
HIKE, BIKE OR CELEBRATE WITH SAM AND HELP
RAISE $1 MILLION FOR CUTTING-EDGE RESEARCH
FIND YOUR SUMMIT AT: WWW.TOURDEFOX.ORG
CAN’T JOIN SAM ON THE ROAD? Support by making a donation. For a limited time,
every dollar donated to Tour de Fox will be matched dollar-for-dollar thanks to the
generosity of an MJFF Board member.
SPRING 2015 13