Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy invests $1 million to fight Duchenne

Parent Project Muscular Dystrophy (PPMD) has invested $1 million in Satellos Bioscience Inc. to help in the development of a regenerative medicine for therapeutic treatment of Duchenne, which the organization helps to fight. 

"Duchenne is the most common fatal genetic disorder diagnosed in childhood, affecting approximately one in 5,000 live male births. Duchenne is caused by a change in the dystrophin gene. In people living with Duchenne, it was discovered by Dr. Michael Rudnicki, the scientific founder of Satellos, that muscle stem cells are severely compromised in their ability to create muscle progenitor cells which repair injured muscle. As a result, people with Duchenne are unable to keep up with the continuous damage to their muscles throughout life," the company stated in the press release on PR Newswire. 

The development of the drug treatment could help treat those who live with Duchenne. 

"For over 25 years, PPMD has been committed to exploring and supporting every single therapeutic possibility. With this programmatic investment in Satellos, we continue our cutting-edge approach to accelerate finding treatments that have the potential to end Duchenne for every single person impacted by the disease," Eric Camino, PhD, PPMD's vice president of Research and Clinical Innovation, said in the press release. "There is compelling proof of concept data showing that the Satellos technology can improve muscle quality and restore function in the mdx mouse model of Duchenne. This investment from PPMD will enable the Satellos team to build on their proof of concept by amplifying their efforts to invent and refine a drug development candidate suitable for testing in humans."