Public release date: 3-Dec-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Jane E. Rubinstein jrubinstein@rubenstein.com 212-843-8287 Autism Speaks
New York, N.Y. (December 3, 2012) Autism Speaks and Delivering Scientific Innovation for Autism, LLC (DELSIA), its non-profit affiliate, announced today a partnership between DELSIA and Seaside Therapeutics (Cambridge, Mass.) that aims to discover biomarkers that can be used to facilitate the development of safe, effective and personalized treatments of autism spectrum disorders (ASD).
DELSIA's partnership with Seaside will direct funding allocated by Autism Speaks to an innovative program aimed at identifying genetic and protein biomarkers that can be used to identify patients most likely to benefit from treatment with arbaclofen (STX209). Under the terms of the agreement, DELSIA will provide $2 million in funding to support the biomarkers discovery program at Seaside Therapeutics.
"Autism Speaks is extremely pleased to be funding DELSIA's first award of $2 million to Seaside Therapeutics, a company that has shown a long-standing commitment to developing treatments for neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism spectrum disorder," stated Geraldine Dawson, Ph.D., chair of DELSIA's Board of Managers and chief science officer of Autism Speaks. The partnership with Seaside represents the inaugural award for Autism Speaks' newly established venture philanthropy affiliate DELSIA.
"We are enormously excited to be partnering with Seaside, a company at the forefront of autism medicines development in the biotechnology industry," said Robert Ring, Ph.D., president of DELSIA and vice president of translational research at Autism Speaks. "Our partnership will help generate critical information that can be used to pinpoint which individuals with autism are most likely to respond to arbaclofen, one of the first treatments that has the potential to address the core social impairment associated with autism. This knowledge will have broader implications down the road for developing effective treatments for people with autism."
"Recent scientific discoveries have identified several potential treatments for the underlying causes of autism spectrum disorders. However, the broad heterogeneity of ASD suggests that optimal treatment will need to be personalized," said Randy Carpenter, CEO of Seaside Therapeutics. "Identification of biomarkers would enable development of targeted treatments and is a first step toward realizing personalized medicine for individuals with ASD."
"Arbaclofen is the most advanced program in the autism clinical pipeline, and if successful, could deliver the first medical therapy for a core symptom of autism," says Ring. Seaside Therapeutics is developing arbaclofen (STX209), an oral selective gamma-amino butyric acid type B (GABA-B) receptor agonist, as a treatment to improve social and communication functions in autism and Fragile X syndrome (FXS). Earlier this year, Seaside entered into an alliance with the Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche (SIX: RO, ROG; OTCQX: RHHBY) to expand its efforts to develop disease modifying treatments for FXS and ASD.
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Autism Speaks $2 million grant to DELSIA/Seaside Therapeutics to develop autism biomarkers