Bio-Tech
Curebound
Accelerating Cancer Research into Cures
Two organizations come together for one shared vision: a world without cancer.
Launching in 2021, Curebound unites two highly respected cancer organizations, Padres Pedal the Cause (PPTC) and Immunotherapy Foundation (IF), both of which were founded by local families whose lives were changed by cancer.
Padres Pedal the Cause was founded by Bill Koman, a two-time lymphoma survivor, and his wife Amy. Deeply grateful for the life-saving care that Bill received, the Koman family is committed to ensuring the same outcome for others. In 2013, Amy and Bill Koman created Padres Pedal the Cause, a cancer fundraising cycling challenge operated in partnership with the San Diego Padres that has raised more than $15 million and funded 73 collaborative research projects, including 6 clinical trials.
In 2015, Ralph and Fernanda Whitworth established IF to accelerate precision cancer immunotherapy research into better treatments for patients. A year later, Ralph lost his battle with cancer, but his vision lives on through IF’s work. In just six years, IF has contributed more than $5.5 million to promising cancer research, cancer prevention and patient support initiatives. In 2017, in collaboration with UCSD and La Jolla Institute of Immunology, IF established a cutting-edge neoantigen discovery platform with multiple therapeutic applications, including two first-in-kind phase I clinical trials – a personalized cancer vaccine and personalized cell therapy. IF’s investments have yielded more than $22 million in additional grants for UCSD.
These two organizations, and their founders, share the belief that cures are possible when the right people work together.
At Curebound, collaboration is everything.
Throughout 2020, the world saw the power of scientific collaboration in action with the development of the COVID-19 vaccine; a demonstration of what is possible when we allocate resources and work together.
Curebound’s funding model engineers collaboration across multiple disciplines and institutions providing early phase, follow-on and clinical trial funding to cross-institutional research teams that bring together physician scientists, clinical researchers and basic-science researchers to work in partnership on a specific challenge in cancer research. This combination of bringing clinical data to early basic discovery research is unique to Curebound and creates collaborations that otherwise would not exist. Curebound funds collaborative research among these six San Diego research centers: Moores Cancer Center at UC San Diego Health, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, Sanford Burnham Prebys, La Jolla Institute of Immunology and Scripps Research Institute.
Curebound is poised to do more.
Since 2013, PPTC and IF have built a strong foundation with proven results. They have developed excellent relationships within the scientific and medical communities, built trust with corporate and community partners, engaged the public and fine-tuned the collaborative research funding mechanism that sets them apart from other organizations. And now they are poised to do more through the power of philanthropy.
Curebound considers proposals for all types of cancer research and curates opportunities for individuals to invest in specific areas of research. For philanthropists and organizations looking to direct funding toward exploration of a particular cancer type or treatment area, Curebound acts as a conduit to make discerning investments with support from a world-class Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).
Under their SAB’s expert leadership and direction, they are strategic and selective in their research funding – and can be nimble to meet the needs of emerging ideas. Curebound works in partnership with the beneficiary organizations but is not bound by institutional constraints and exercises autonomy to direct funding to the areas that show the most promise, often high risk/high reward projects that yield greater margins of success.
To date, Curebound has secured $6 million in funding towards a $25 million Founders Fund goal. All funds raised will ensure Curebound’s investment of $100 million into collaborative cancer research here in San Diego. For more information on Curebound or how you can support the Founders Fund, please visit Curebound at www.curebound.org.
