Menu
Unify Pharmaceuticals is a biotech company utilizing the latest scientific discoveries to develop drugs targeting neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s Disease, Myocardial Infarction, Macular Degeneration, Alzheimer’s and Strokes. The company is the culmination of over 20 years’ research into UP-1007, the first-in-class water-soluble fullerene that has been shown to successfully target the underlying causes of Parkinson’s and other diseases involving oxidative damage. Unify has already received more than $25 M USD in funding from federal grants and philanthropic gifts.
Unify will be led by some of the brightest scientific minds in the world with a proven record of creating and developing the world’s most successful drugs:
Prof Laura Dugan – a neuroscientist at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, whose work on neurodegenerative diseases over the past two decades forms the basis for Unify’s business. A physician-scientist, Dugan has studied at some of the top scientific institutions in the world including MIT and Stanford.
Prof Sir Marc Feldmann – has initiated a major revolution in therapeutics; he initiated and developed the first successful monoclonal antibody therapy, anti-TNF.
Further developments in future uniting UP-1007 with cannabidiol (CBD) have the opportunity to provide effective and, most importantly, completely safe treatments for a number of diseases.
In 1990 Prof Sir Marc Feldmann visited Centocor to present the rationale for blocking TNF in rheumatoid arthritis. Reluctantly, they helped him and Sir Ravinder Maini test this with their antibody, now Infliximab (Remicade). The resulting success led to Centocor’s $4.9 B USD acquisition by Johnson & Johnson in 1999. Infliximab is now one of the world’s best-selling drugs, with sales of $7.152 B USD in 2017.
Feldmann and Maini are credited with creating the whole class of anti-TNF drugs. Several other companies used their pioneering research to underpin their own clinical trials.
1983
Publishes his hypothesis highlighting the role of cytokines in autoimmune diseases
1984
Begins collaborating with Ravinder S. Maini on rheumatoid arthritis research
1988
Published that anti-TNF normalized joint inflammation in vitro (Brennan et al, Lancet 1988)
1992
First successful trials of Infliximab
1999
Infliximab (Remicade) approved and released to the market
Centocor acquired by J&J for $4.9 B USD
2000
Awarded the Crafoord prize with Maini for their work on anti-TNF therapy
2003
Awarded the Albert Lasker award for Clinical Medical Research
2004
Awarded the Cameron Prize for Therapeutics from the University of Edinburgh
2006
Elected a fellow of the Royal Society
2007
Awarded “European Inventor of the Year” by the European Patent Offices
2010
Knighted by Prince Charles in the Queen’s Birthday Honours
2014
Sir Marc Feldmann receives the Canada Gairdner International Award which is the highest scientific award in Canada
2017
Remicade is the seventh-best-selling drug in the world with sales of $7.152 B USD
1981
Graduates from MIT, having begun work on graphite composite materials
1987
Completes MD at Ohio State University
1990
Begins clinical training & research on neurodegenerative diseases at Stanford University
1993
Funding by the National Institute of Health begins
1994
Joins Washington University, St Louis
1997
First work published on the neuroprotective properties of UP-1007
2005
First physician-scientist named as Chair in Geriatrics at UCSD
2014
Named head of Division of Geriatric Medicine at Vanderbilt
2015
Meets Prof Sir Marc Feldmann at the University of Oxford
2019
Prof Dugan has received approx. $25 M USD in funding in Federal NIH and DoD grants, one SBIR, and several large philanthropic gifts
All Rights Reserved 2020.
