As breakthroughs become increasingly collaborative and data-driven, intellectual property strategies are evolving in tandem. With Michelle Durborow and Jim McNasby at the helm, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research (MJFF) is reshaping how IP rights are defined, shared and commercialized — bringing the world one step closer to a cure, one research grant at a time.
Michelle Durborow doesn’t want your intellectual property.She wants to find a cure for Parkinson’s disease.
Michelle Durborow
Jim McNasby
“In the world of tech transfer, we are constantly looking for ways to bridge the gap between early-stage discovery and real-world impact,” Susalka explained.
“The Michael J. Fox Foundation is the gold standard, and you are at the center of that work,” he told Durborow.
Afterward, she was quick to downplay her contributions in the fight against Parkinson’s but her colleague, MJFF General Counsel Jim McNasby, would have none of it.
Durborow, he raved, “works magic.”
The two sat down with MLex to talk about the work being done at MJFF — where 26 years later, the singular goal remains solving the Parkinson’s puzzle in this lifetime.
— Diagnosis on the rise —
A progressive neurological disorder stemming from the loss of dopamine-producing neurons in the brain, Parkinson’s causes tremors, stiffness, slowed movement, and balance problems.
Over time, it can also impact mood, cognition, sleep, and other functions and while not often a primary cause of death, the frailty and reduced ability to fight infection that plagues patients in late stages of the disease contributes significantly to mortality.
According to the World Health Organization, an estimated 329,000 lives were lost to Parkinson’s-related complications in 2019 — a 100 percent increase over 2000.
In the US, alone, nearly 100,000 will receive the diagnosis this year.
The exact cause is unknown, and there is no cure.
— ‘Purity of motive’ —
MJFF adheres to an open-science, patient-first model of research funding — one that is accelerating breakthroughs while defusing many of the IP tensions that have traditionally bogged down biomedical innovation.
The duo say their approach is rooted in what actor and founder Michael J. Fox calls “purity of motive.”
Rather than staking a claim to ownership or asserting control over downstream patents, the foundation makes clear from the outset it has no interest in recouping IP rights or in receiving an equity share on treatments made possible by MJFF grants. The only objective, instead, is to move promising science forward.
“We're not doing this for us. We're in it for the patients,” McNasby says.
That clarity of purpose builds early trust and encourages long-term collaboration rather than transactional negotiation, according to Durborow.
It’s also reflected in the MJFF funding model.
While grantees are free to commercialize discoveries that stem from foundation-backed research, not unlike federal funding which vests title with grant recipients, there is one modest repayment mechanism: once a product reaches commercialization and begins generating revenue, a grantee may be asked to repay the original award — capped at up to two times the amount awarded — without interest.
The recovered funds are then reinvested by MJFF into new Parkinson’s research.
There are other strings attached but they are precious few, and each similarly centers the needs of patients: grant acceptance can be often tied to nonexclusive research-use licenses or obligations to share tools or datasets with other foundation-funded initiatives. At other times, the MJFF will require a commitment to make resulting technologies available for Parkinson’s-related research on reasonable terms.
From a legal perspective, a subtle but significant distinction emerges: ownership stays centralized with the inventor and their institution, while functional control over future use of their discoveries is at least partly distributed across the MJFF ecosystem.
That hybrid structure — sitting somewhere between federal grant compliance and venture investment governance — is paying off.
— Biomarker breakthrough —
Over the past 25 years, the foundation’s contribution of an estimated $2.5 billion in research funding has fueled the launch of roughly 40 new Parkinson’s therapies. More than 500 other candidates are currently in development.
And while many improve upon traditional levodopa-based treatments, including new modes of delivery like patches and pumps, Durborow and McNasby are quick to point to other advances.
Among the most transformational is the development of a Parkinson’s biomarker, which flowed from MJFF’s creation in 2010 of the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI).
The landmark study of more than 3,000 participants — both with and without the disease — produced the large, standardized dataset and biological samples needed to discover and validate, in 2023, the alpha-synuclein protein: a hallmark of the disease, which misfolds in the brain of a Parkinson’s patient.
Earlier, definitive diagnosis means less guesswork and better, more targeted treatments.
— Shots on goal —
But the foundation’s strategy spans the full research and development pipeline — from early-stage biological discovery through late-stage clinical infrastructure. Accordingly, MJFF makes funding available for startups, publicly traded companies, academic institutions and biotech ventures alike.
Believing “no idea is a bad idea,” Durborow says her team intentionally takes “many shots on goal.”
One of their most ambitious shots taken is 2024’s LITE Program (LRRK2 Investigative Therapeutics Exchange), a consortium of more than 50 partners collaborating in the development of treatments that target the LRRK2 gene — known since 2004 to be a driver of certain forms of inherited Parkinson’s.
The initiative, being implemented at the University of Dundee in the United Kingdom, brings together academic researchers, pharmaceutical companies and clinical teams under a coordinated framework.
MJFF has pledged tens of millions of dollars in support.
Real-time sharing of data, biosamples and early findings is required, allowing participants like Montara Therapeutics, SandboxAQ, Seal Rock Therapeutics and SciNeuro Pharmaceuticals to assess results as they emerge and pivot if a line of research falters.
According to Durborow and McNasby, that structure helps revive shelved industry assets and fosters cooperation that might otherwise be stifled by competitive IP pressures.
Maintaining an early and open dialogue with technology transfer offices (TTOs) and other stakeholders is key.
“If you start at the beginning — an idea for something moving beyond basic research, either a tool or a compound or an asset — you don't have to start thinking of it as something you protect until you're ready to spring it on the world. You go slowly and you say, ‘Okay, this is what we think is basic and not patentable, but this part might be, so you ought to protect it,’” McNasby explains.
“By having that conversation early, instead of after you've invested lots of dollars, and by not making it binary — a yes or no — you make it a gradual and incremental conversation. There are no surprises and you develop trust over time,” he adds.
— ‘Not transactional’ —
MJFF's patient-centered ethos is also deeply personal.
McNasby, who has lived with Parkinson’s for more than two decades, described his work at the foundation as purpose-driven in a way his prior corporate career was not.
His hope is that within his lifetime therapies will emerge that halt neurodegeneration, even if a full cure remains elusive.
And while he and Durborow declined a prediction for if or when that cure might arrive, both say they are optimistic.
They describe the pace of progress over the past decade as steep and accelerating and say investment in Parkinson’s research is reaching unprecedented levels. With the infrastructure now in place — from an alpha-synuclein biomarker to the LRRK2 genetic consortia — to better position the field for faster breakthroughs, the optimism feels justified.
For those accustomed to contentious battles in the biomedical space, the MJFF approach stands out.
“We're not transactional,” McNasby says. “We're long-term partners.”
By centering patients and minimizing IP friction, the foundation is spearheading a model that encourages collaboration without sacrificing commercialization — charting, along the way, a path to better health outcomes for millions around the world.
*AUTM Annual Meeting, Seattle, Feb. 8-11, 2026.
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