FasterCures is a Washington, D.C.-based “action tank” dedicated to saving lives by saving time – specifically, the time it takes to find cures for all life-threatening diseases.  It does so by removing barriers to progress in medical research through programs designed for speed and optimization.  The FasterCures Philanthropy Advisory Service helps independent philanthropists, their financial advisers, and charitable foundations identify the wisest application of their resources, through direct FasterCures consulting services and publications.

To foster innovation throughout the research community, FasterCures TRAIN Network brings leaders together from more than two dozen disease-specific organizations that have one thing in common:  They’ve applied innovative approaches to their research funding – successfully.  Patients Helping Doctors is a FasterCures program to raise widespread understanding of the crucial role patients play in research, with the ultimate goal of increasing patient participation in clinical trials and other research efforts.

The Melanoma Research Alliance is accelerating scientific discovery, speeding development of new treatments and improving the health outcomes of patients with melanoma.  Formed in 2007 under the auspices of the Milken Institute with the support ofDebra and Leon Black, the MRA operates on the principle that venture philanthropy, coupled with a strategic scientific agenda, can transform the field of melanoma research.

Melanoma accounts for 80 percent of all skin cancer-related deaths.  Patients diagnosed with later-stage – or metastatic – melanoma have less than a 15 percent chance of surviving five years.  And this feared killer is rapidly increasing in incidence both in the United States and globally, for incompletely understood reasons involving genetic and environmental risk factors.  Sadly, very little progress has been made against this disease.  To reverse that, a world-class, cross-disciplinary group of expert biomedical researchers was convened to develop a new melanoma research agenda – the MRA.  Its mission is to provide innovative research solutions, better treatments and—ultimately—a cure for melanoma.

The Milken Institute is a publicly supported, nonpartisan, academic think tank working toward a more democratic and efficient global economy – primarily through the  democratization of capital.  The Institute uses capital-market principles and financial innovations to address social and economic challenges, from energy independence to poverty eradication, in the United Statesand abroad.   It helps business, foundation, academic and public-policy leaders identify and implement new ideas for creating broad-based prosperity.

The Prostate Cancer Foundation (PCF) is the world’s largest philanthropic source of support for prostate cancer research.  Its mission is to discover better treatments and a cure for recurrent prostate cancer – a cancer that will strike one in every six men.  The PCF pursues this mission by reaching out to individuals, corporations and other communities to harness society’s resources – financial and human – to fight this deadly disease.  The PCF has raised more than $350 million and provided funding for more than 2,000 research projects at nearly 200 institutions worldwide.  The PCF has been a pioneer in the grant-making process, simplifying paperwork for medical-research grantees to leave them more time to conduct their investigative work.  The PCF also advocates greater awareness of prostate cancer and more government resources, resulting in a twenty-fold increase in government funding for prostate cancer.

PCF activities have produced notable scientific achievements in such fields of research as monoclonal antibodies, immunotherapy, gene therapy and genetic triggers, anti-angiogenesis, androgen receptors, surface markers, proteomic pattern recognition and many others.