Berg And The Parkinson's Institute And Clinical Center Announce Key Clinical Study Focused On Game-changing Innovations In Parkinson's Disease Biomarker Discovery

- Third Phase of Collaboration Aims to Unravel Mysteries of Disease by Identifying Disease Markers and Potential New Drug Targets

FRAMINGHAM, Massachusetts and SUNNYVALE, California, Feb. 18, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Berg and the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center today announced the next phase in their ongoing partnership, focused on identifying potential biomarkers that may lead to breakthroughs in the research, diagnosis, and treatment of Parkinson's disease. Using Berg's Interrogative Biology™ platform to analyze multi-omic tissue samples (skin fibroblasts, blood, urine) supplied by the Parkinson's Institute, this collaboration will identify the differences between healthy and diseased tissues in an effort to unravel the mysteries of Parkinson's disease. Berg and the Parkinson's Institute together are the first teams to approach biomarker discovery by looking at proteomics, metabolomics, and lipidomics, in addition to clinical data, simultaneously in human patients and controls from the same cohort.

The new clinical study launched at the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center will collect urine, blood, and other relevant tissue samples from people living with Parkinson's disease. These materials will be used to validate biomarker candidates identified previously from the collaboration. Most importantly, this will represent a first in merging patients' molecular and clinical information to develop profiles that will drive the development of biomarkers.

Berg is a biopharmaceutical company committed to uncovering health solutions through a data-driven, biological research approach. The Parkinson's Institute is America's only independent, non-profit organization that brings together world-class care, laboratory research, clinical research, and clinical trials for Parkinson's disease under one roof.

"This partnership harnesses the exceptional clinical expertise and superior research resources of the Parkinson's Institute, along with Berg's unique ability to integrate patient-specific molecular data with clinical and demographic information," said Niven R. Narain, Co-Founder, President and Chief Technology Officer of Berg. "This new and exciting phase of our collaboration has the potential to create a number of game-changing innovations to better diagnose and manage Parkinson's disease."

Parkinson's disease is a progressive movement-related disorder of the central nervous system. It is estimated that there are approximately one million Americans living with Parkinson's. Each year, 50,000 new cases are diagnosed, and this rate is expected to rise with the aging baby boomer population. A clear understanding of Parkinson's and its underlying pathophysiology continues to be elusive as a result of the disease's complexity and a lack of predictive capability among existing models.

The expectation for this partnership is that it will help lead to a greater understanding of Parkinson's disease and the development of new tools that can change its course.

"Through our collaboration with Berg, we hope to identify predictors for the disease and potential new drug targets. Armed with this information, we will be able to better diagnose and develop therapies that can treat and perhaps even halt the neurological damage caused by Parkinson's, " said Birgitt Schuele, M.D., Director of Gene Discovery and Stem Cell Modeling at the Parkinson's Institute. "This collaboration is very exciting. Our discoveries have the potential to change the way we think about and approach Parkinson's disease."

One fundamental and defining contribution of the Berg-Parkinson's Institute collaboration will be to provide hallmark insights into disease pathophysiology.

"With diseases like cancer and diabetes, we at least have a foundational map and understanding of their pathways. Our challenge with most central nervous system (CNS) diseases is that there is a gross lack of understanding of the molecular pathways and drivers of disease pathophysiology. The anchor points are just not as clear as they are with other disease states," said Paula P. Narain, CNS Disease Program Lead at Berg. "This collaboration will lead to insights into disease mechanisms that will provide a solid foundation for biomarker and therapeutic candidate discovery. Berg is confident that the combination of tissue samples and expertise from the Parkinson's Institute, together with their award-winning Interrogative Biology™ platform, will usher in a paradigm shift in Parkinson's disease."

To learn more about Parkinson's disease, please visit the Parkinson's Institute at ThePI.org. To learn more about Berg, please visit BergPharma.com.

About the Berg Interrogative Biology™ Platform
Berg's application of machine-learning (Artificial Intelligence) in biology and medicine allows for a combination of systems biology and systems engineering leading to well defined answers on human health. The Berg Interrogative Biology™ platform integrates molecular data directly from a patient with clinical and demographic information to learn predictive patterns. The platform has the potential to provide the physician with actionable information to recommend efficient and safe treatment pathways, insurance companies with health economics analyses to develop more relevant formulary and governments with a data ecosystem for financial modeling of healthcare needs of the population.

About Berg
Berg, the namesake of Carl Berg, is a biopharmaceutical company and parent company to Berg Pharma, Berg Biosystems and Berg Diagnostics. Our research focus seeks to understand how alterations in metabolism relate to disease onset. We have uncovered key insight into metabolic control factors and namely into underlying elements in the Warburg Hypothesis. The company has a deep pipeline of early-stage technologies in CNS diseases and metabolic diseases that complement its late-stage clinical trial activity in cancer and prevention of chemotoxicity. Armed with use of the discovery platform that translates biological output into viable therapeutics and a robust biomarker library, Berg is poised to realize its pursuit of a healthier tomorrow. For additional information, visit http://www.bergpharma.com/.

About the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center
Two and a half decades ago, a dedicated group of Parkinson's disease experts set out to create a better way to research and provide care for Parkinson's disease. We would go beyond your standard doctor-patient relationship. Patients would become partners in developing their care plans, improving their quality of life, and discovering new strategies to confront and manage their disease. Compassionate care would work hand in hand with cutting-edge research to seek answers, develop new therapies and treatments, and ultimately work toward a cure. Our result was the Parkinson's Institute and Clinical Center. Along the way, we have built something that's thoroughly unique. Our Institute is a place where people living with Parkinson's can both pursue their care and play an important role in research that will undoubtedly continue to change the landscape of Parkinson's science and medicine. We are America's only independent nonprofit organization combining world-class care, clinical research, and laboratory research for Parkinson's disease under one roof. By virtue of our design, we are uniquely equipped to provide the best care, accelerate promising science, and perhaps most important—integrate the two and everything in between. It's what we now call Our Virtuous Circle and people living with Parkinson's and their loved ones are at the center of all that we do.

Connect with the Parkinson's Institute:
www.ThePI.org
www.Facebook.com/PDpartner
www.Twitter.com/PDpartner

Contact: Chris Wahlers, +1-212-880-5293, chris.wahlers@ogilvy.com