Lario Therapeutics awarded $6M Grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research

Jul 23 2024

Lario Therapeutics (‘Lario’, or ‘the Company’), a biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class precision medicines for epileptic and neurological disorders, today announced it has been awarded a $6 million USD grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF). The program is in collaboration with the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, which will also be delivering key science as part of the grant.

The grant will be used to fund Lario’s preclinical program investigating selective CaV2.3 calcium channel inhibition as a novel and disease-modifying approach for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. There is extensive literature linking calcium channels to pathology of the disease, and it has been demonstrated in preclinical experimental studies that the deletion of CaV2.3 can have a protective effect against Parkinson’s disease progression. Lario is partnering with Professor Richard Wade-Martins and the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre (OPDC) for the study, for the evaluation of Lario compounds in state-of-the-art patient-derived stem cell models of Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder occurring when brain cells that make dopamine, which coordinates movement, stop working or die. Symptoms are lifelong and worsen over time, including motor dysfunction, such as tremors, slowness, stiffness, walking, and balance problems, as well as problems such as depression and memory problems. More than 10 million people worldwide are estimated to be living with Parkinson’s, with no current cure.

Tom Otis, Ph.D., Professor of Neuroscience UCL and Chief Scientific Officer of Lario Therapeutics, said: “We are grateful to MJFF for their funding support for Lario’s efforts to test and develop a potential new therapy designed to prevent the loss of neurons that causes Parkinson’s disease. If our research is successful, this will represent an important new treatment option for patients.”

“This significant funding from The Michael J. Fox Foundation will aid the work out of our therapeutic pipeline and the work we have achieved so far in advancing research in the field. We would like to thank the MJFF team for their support,” added Henning Steinhagen, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CEO of Lario Therapeutics. “This grant will help drive our ambition to progress our Cav2.3 program swiftly towards the clinic, to provide a new, effective treatment option for people with Parkinson’s disease.”

“MJFF is dedicated to funding innovative research, such as the work done at Lario Therapeutics, to develop a pipeline of novel therapies that can improve the lives of people with Parkinson’s disease,” said Gaia Skibinski, Ph.D., director of research programs at MJFF. “We look forward to seeing the results of Lario’s research on CaV2.3 as a novel disease-modifying approach for Parkinson’s.”

Richard Wade-Martins, MA, DPhil, Professor of Molecular Neuroscience, University of Oxford, and head of the Oxford Parkinson’s Disease Centre, said: “I am excited to partner with the team at Lario Therapeutics – having grant funding from MJFF is a testament to the impact this study aims to bring to patients. Our research center works to understand the development of Parkinson’s, with the ultimate aim of targeting the molecular mechanisms of the disease, to prevent disease onset, or to delay progression. We see great potential in the CaV2.3 program and are very happy to collaborate to study patient stem cell-derived neuronal models as part of the research.”

For more information about Lario Therapeutics’ pipeline please visit https://www.lariotx.com/pipeline.