Funding announcement: Protas receives support from Schmidt Futures

Protas announces today that it has been awarded a $2m USD grant by recommendation of Schmidt Futures, a philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt. This grant will enable Protas to strengthen its capacity and the digital infrastructure it needs to design and deliver large, randomised clinical trials for common and other life-threatening diseases.  

Schmidt Futures is a philanthropic initiative that brings talented people together in networks to prove out their ideas and solve hard problems in science and society. One of these problems, identified by Protas, is the rising cost of large-scale clinical trials, which in recent decades has led to a decrease in the development of new treatments for major health conditions such as heart and lung disease, arthritis, depression and dementia that affect a large proportion of the global population. Protas aims to improve patient outcomes by increasing the availability and affordability of high quality, large-scale trials for these common and other life-threatening diseases in the United Kingdom, United States and worldwide.

Professor Sir Martin Landray, Chief Executive of Protas, said; “This support from Schmidt Futures is a major endorsement of Protas, for which we are incredibly grateful. We are confident that our approach can transform the opportunities for the development of new treatments for common diseases that pose a major threat to public health around the world. Grants like this can get us closer to that goal.”

“Protas is tackling a critical problem – the rising costs of clinical trials needed to discover better treatments for common diseases,” said Tom Kalil, Chief Innovation Officer of Schmidt Futures. “Aligned with our belief in promoting the application of technology for human benefit, this work has a huge potential impact on scientific knowledge and public health. I hope other philanthropists will join with us in supporting this important initiative.”

For more information on what Protas does, please click here.