BrainBlog

From a company press release : September 30, 2008 Media Contact: Greg Kelley, Feinstein Kean Healthcare (+++) +++-++++ Link Medicine Completes $40 million Series C Financing to Accelerate Development of First Disease-Modifying Treatments for Neurodegenerative Disorders Co-led by Clarus Ventures and SV Life Sciences,the Financing will Advance Preclinical and Clinical Programs CAMBRIDGE, Mass. - Link Medicine Corporation , a privately held biotechnology company advancing novel approaches for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, announced today that it has obtained $40 million of Series C equity financing to help move its lead preclinical programs into human clinical testing. The round was funded by two leading biotechnology investors - Clarus Ventures and SV Life Sciences. Link Medicine, founded in March 2005, is focused on developing the first disease-modifying therapies for the treatment of several neurodegenerative diseases - including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Hunting...

From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release on the 26th: Scientists Suggest New Pathway Causing Cell Death in Dementia Scientists have discovered a link between a mutated gene and a protein found in dead brain cells of people who suffer from a form of dementia and other neurological disorders. The finding, reported in the Sep. 26, 2007, issue of the Journal of Neuroscience , demonstrates for the first time a pathological pathway that ultimately results in cell death related to frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease). The discovery could eventually play a role in the design of new drug therapies. The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Leonard Petrucelli, Ph.D., and Dennis W. Dickson, M.D, of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla., led the international team of scientists in the study supported by the Mayo Clinic Foundation. The study, in ce...