Update: The following update relating to this announcement has been issued:
Release Date: October 29, 2010
Deadline for First Cycle: December 6, 2010
Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases Program (TRND)
NIH Center for Translational Therapeutics (NCTT)
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program is a new Congressionally mandated program that performs preclinical and early clinical development of new drugs for rare and neglected diseases, and develops new technologies and paradigms to improve the efficiency of therapeutic development for these diseases. The operational model of TRND is collaboration between intramural NIH drug development scientists and partners having promising leads and disease/target knowledge but lacking the expertise or resources to develop these projects into clinical stage programs attractive to biopharmaceutical or other suitable organizations. TRND is establishing collaborations with researchers in the public and private sectors to together de-risk Rare and Neglected disease drug development projects by accomplishing lead optimization through an FDA Investigational New Drug (IND) application and, when needed, proof-of-concept human studies.
TRND collaborative projects will be initiated at any stage during preclinical development. Projects of interest will be at one of the following stages:
The TRND program will partner with academic laboratories, not-for-profit organizations, and for-profit companies. Foreign organizations may also apply. Applications are made through the online grants management website ProposalCentral. Submitted research proposals will be reviewed for scientific merit and technical feasibility, as well as program balance and availability of resources. Successful applicants will collaborate with TRND to create and implement a therapeutic development project plan. Note this is not a grant or contract program.
To apply to the TRND program, please visit the TRND webpage at http://trnd.nih.gov
The application deadline for the first cycle of the program is December 6, 2010.
Please direct all inquiries to:
Dr. Phyllis Frosst
Director of Collaborative Operations
NIH Center for Translational Therapeutics
National Human Genome Research Institute
National Institutes of Health
9800 Medical Center Drive, MSC 3370
Bethesda, MD 20892-3370
TRND@mail.nih.gov