Alkermes Awards COVID-19 Relief Fund Grants to 10 Innovative Programs Designed to Address Challenges for Patient Communities
– Special Edition of Alkermes Inspiration Grants® Program Focused on Addressing Pandemic-Related Needs of People Living with Addiction, Serious Mental Illness, or Cancer –
DUBLIN, June 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Alkermes plc (Nasdaq: ALKS) today announced that 10 nonprofit organizations have been awarded grants from the company's COVID-19 Relief Fund, a special edition of the company's signature Alkermes Inspiration Grants® program, that was established to assist nonprofit organizations in their work to rapidly address pandemic-related needs for people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer. More than 350 applications were submitted in May 2020 for this highly competitive program.
Collectively, the programs receiving grants reach across Alkermes' therapeutic focus areas and seek to serve populations that span ethnic, socio-economic, gender, and age spectrums, utilizing a variety of approaches targeted to the acute challenges presented by COVID-19, including: peer-support programs; innovative technologies, formats and channels to expand access to and reach of essential nonprofit programming; creative approaches to bolster crisis response; and provision of essentials such as food, housing, and career support.
"As stay-at-home orders took effect across the U.S., we reached out to understand how efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19 were impacting people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer," said Richard Pops, Chief Executive Officer of Alkermes. "We learned that the fear, social isolation, and economic hardship impacting so many has led to even greater challenges for these communities. We remain steadfast in our commitment to help address their unique and complex needs and will continue to evolve our longstanding efforts to provide meaningful and lasting support for these patient populations."
2020 Grant Recipient Organizations and Programs:
10,000 Beds is launching a new podcast to give people in recovery access to accurate information, a safe place to be heard and to listen, and a source for guidance on how to navigate a socially distanced world as they attempt to socially reintegrate.
Clubhouse International's Online Communities project is a comprehensive digital response to establish new channels of communication and virtual resources for Clubhouses and their members to address social and economic isolation for people living with mental illness.
Community Servings is increasing kitchen/delivery capacity and providing 75,000 medically-tailored meals to 340 clients and their families affected by cancer throughout Massachusetts.
Faces & Voices of Recovery is working to ensure recovery community organizations across the nation can sustain and adapt peer recovery support services through and beyond the current COVID-19 pandemic, with tools and resources to build organizational knowledge, capacity, and resilience in response to emergencies and risks.
Imerman Angels provides COVID-19 related information and will increase online capacity, video programming and other digital vehicles to partner cancer fighters, survivors, and caregivers with someone just like them – a "Mentor Angel" – a cancer survivor, previvor, or caregiver who has faced the same type of cancer.
National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York City, through its NAMI-NYC Helpline, provides materials, information, resources, and referrals on current and ever-changing COVID-19 issues relating to mental health in New York City, connecting callers with vital services including housing, employment, healthcare, public services/benefits, and legal services.
Ohio Recovery Housing provides recovery housing operators with best-practice guidance, along with training and technical assistance, so that they may continue to offer quality environments during and after the pandemic, looking beyond immediate needs, bringing back lost capacity, being more sustainable, and growing to meet increasing demand.
Sound Mind Live's Artist Ambassadors Crisis Response Program will feature well-known musical artists speaking out on mental health effects of COVID-19 and ways to address them, including a COVID-19 Mental Health Resource Toolkit and a series of online interviews, virtual panels, and podcasts.
This Is My Brave is building upon BraveTV, a Facebook Live series, to urgently address COVID-19 related needs for people living with addiction and serious mental illness to continually increase the number of individuals putting a name, face, and story to mental illness through storytelling, and with a focus on highlighting and partnering with mental health organizations that are led by, and serve, members of the Black community.
Young People in Recovery serves youth and young adults who are no longer able to access in-person services with virtual peer recovery support services such as peer recovery support meetings, pro-social activities, and life skills trainings to help them maintain long-term recovery from drugs and alcohol.
Grant recipients were selected based on pre-determined decision criteria including: a focus on people living with mental illness, substance use disorders, or cancer; clearly defined needs, objectives, activity format, mode of delivery, and intended audience; relevance to the COVID-19 pandemic; ability to implement in a rapid time frame and sustainability of the impact beyond the immediate crisis; the organization's ability to execute the proposed program; and uniqueness and creativity of the proposed program/solution.
Since 2016, the Alkermes Inspiration Grants program has awarded more than $3 million in funding to innovative programs that support the comprehensive needs of those most impacted by serious diseases in our areas of focus. Due to the urgent and unexpected needs created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company revamped its Alkermes Inspiration Grants program for 2020 to provide grants to assist nonprofit organizations in their work to urgently address pandemic-related needs for people living with addiction, serious mental illness, or cancer. For more information on the Alkermes COVID-19 Relief Fund, including additional details about the grant recipients and awarded programs, please visit https://www.alkermes.com/responsibility.
About Alkermes plc
Alkermes plc is a fully integrated, global biopharmaceutical company developing innovative medicines in the fields of neuroscience and oncology. The company has a portfolio of proprietary commercial products focused on addiction and schizophrenia, and a pipeline of product candidates in development for schizophrenia, bipolar I disorder, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer. Headquartered in Dublin, Ireland, Alkermes plc has an R&D center in Waltham, Massachusetts; a research and manufacturing facility in Athlone, Ireland; and a manufacturing facility in Wilmington, Ohio. For more information, please visit Alkermes' website at www.alkermes.com.
ALKERMES INSPIRATION GRANTS is a registered service mark of Alkermes, Inc.
Alkermes Contacts:
For Investors: Sandy Coombs, +1 781 609 6377
For Media: Katie Joyce, +1 781 609 6806
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