FDA and NIH yesterday announced the launch of the Critical Path for Rare Neurodegenerative Diseases (CP-RND), a public–private partnership aimed at advancing the understanding of neurodegenerative diseases and fostering the development of treatments for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and other rare neurodegenerative diseases. The FDA and NIH have selected the Critical Path Institute (C-Path) as the convener of this partnership.
C-Path will convene the partnership, bringing together experts in rare neurodegenerative diseases, including patient communities, advocacy organizations, and private entities. The direction and priorities for the effort will be determined with input from the partners. Areas of focus will include patient-focused drug development and utilization of the FDA-funded Rare Disease Cures Accelerator-Data and Analytics Platform to bring together scientific data on rare neurodegenerative diseases to facilitate the characterization of neurodegenerative diseases and their natural history, the identification of molecular targets for neurodegenerative disease, and increased efficiency, predictability, and productivity of clinical development of therapies.