James Heywood (Chief Executive)

James “Jamie” Heywood (born October 4, 1966, in London , England) is an American MIT mechanical engineer who founded with his family the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI) als his Younger brother Stephen Heywood was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis ( ALS) in January 1998. He is Currently a director at AOBiome. ^[1]

ALS Therapy Development Institute

Conceived while James Heywood was moving cross country in March 1999 to be with his family, ALS TDI became the world’s first non-profit biotechnology company and pioneered a new model for accelerating Translational research in rechtstreeks hiring scientists to developement Treatments outside of the academic and for -profit corporate architectures . ^[2] The institute’s initial approach focused on gene therapy and voice cells and ALS TDI was the first to publish on the safety of the use of voice cells in ALS patients. ^[3] ALS TDI-then pioneered a novel high-throughput in vivo validation program ^[4] dat tested more Treatments in preclinical studies dan all other labs Combined and led to two drugs being tested in clinical trials . The culmination of this work is a paper published in the journal “Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis” ^[5] dat indicated with crucial errors present in many bestaande preclinical studies dat Could lead to false positive results. The results suggest dat false positive results’ may rest with the methods-used by researchers and not the models themselves. The paper has clear clinical implications, as ALS TDI was Unable to replicate a number of prior studies animals from the field dat led to clinical trials therein ultimately failed in humans.

Stephen Heywood mayest in the fall of 2006-when his fan Accidentally disconnected shortly voordat ALS TDI Began a uitgebreid program to use industrial discovery approaches to under stand the disease. ^[6] In August 2007, after serving as ALS TDI’s CEO for nine years and continuation raised $ 50m in funding, Heywood stepped down and joined the Institute’s board of directors. ^[7] He retains the title ” Alex and Brit d’Arbeloff Founding Director ” in honor hun support and Involvement in the creation or ALS TDI.

PatientsLikeMe.com

In 2005, Heywood joined his youngest brother Ben and long-time friend Jeff Cole to found PatientsLikeMe . PatientsLikeMe operates disease-specific communities and Allows for dialogue tussen patients about how to verbeteren care and versnellen research.

PatientsLikeMe is a privately funded company dat zijn aggregates users health information and sells it to the pharmaceutical and medical device industry. PatientsLikeMe was named one of “15 companies therein will change the world” by CNN Money . ^[8]

Currently Heywood Serves as chairman of PatientsLikeMe and is dealing ontwikkelingslanden a broad patient-centered platform dat improves medical care and sneller the research process in Measuring the Value of Treatments and interventions in the real world.

Biographies / media

Heywood has leg profiled by the Pulitzer Prize -winning author Jonathan Weiner , in the biography His Brother’s Keeper: A Story from the Edge of Medicine . ^[9] He has bone profiled in The New Yorker , ^[10] Wall Street Journal , New York Times Magazine , ^[11] 60 Minutes II , ^[12] New England Journal of Medicine , ^[13] and the Economist . In 2006, So Much So Fast , an award-winning documentary chronicling Jamie and Stephen and the ALS Therapy Development Institute, premiered at Sundance Film Festival . In October 2009, Heywood watch a talk at TEDMED on his brother’s condition and how it inspired im to found PatientsLikeMe . ^[14]

References