Cures For Many Rare Diseases May Already Exist: Annette Bakker, President of Children’s Tumor Foundation with Host Richard Levick of LEVICK

In a “call for the courageous” Annette Bakker, a PhD in Biochemistry and President of the Children’s Tumor Foundation, speaks with host Richard Levick of LEVICK about the fact that cures for cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, neurofibromatosis and rare cancers may have already been developed but that scientists don’t realize it yet. With minor tweaks, some of pharma’s discarded drugs could be turned into game-changing therapies for currently untreatable diseases. Big Pharma will need big business incentives — whether that’s the promise of higher ESG scores, new investors or a stake in the repurposed drugs — to agree so CTF developed the BRIDGE initiative to helps find just such incentives. CTF has built worldwide collaborative science networks, an open biobank, a centralized data collection and integration platform, a patient registry and more to make it easier and more economically viable for pharmaceutical companies to recycle old drugs to save lives. CTF has already successfully worked with one major drug company to repurpose a discontinued medicine that may end up helping treat a number of rare tumors.