Andrew Lo’s expertise in creating novel economic models that provide solutions for cost of care for rare illnesses could open the door for more nano-rare patients to receive treatment 

SAN DIEGO, Calif., May 14, 2024, (BUSINESS WIRE) n-Lorem, a nonprofit foundation, discovering, developing and providing experimental antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) medicines for nano-rare patients (1 to 30 patients worldwide) for free, for life, today announced that Andrew W. Lo, Ph.D., has joined its Board of Directors.

“n-Lorem has taken on the complex and seemingly insurmountable problem of developing therapies for nano-rare illnesses and created a replicable and scalable model that has the potential to vastly improve the lives of patients without bankrupting their families or the healthcare system,” said Andrew W. Lo, Ph.D., Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor of Finance at the MIT Sloan School of Management. “This is a challenge that I’ve been working on for the past decade and a half, and am excited and honored to support in any way I can n-Lorem’s noble efforts to accelerate ASO clinical research and drug development to benefit people struggling with nano-rare conditions.” 

“Every member of the nano-rare community is unique, but their need for therapies that can help halt the progression of their illness is not. With hundreds of thousands of nano-rare patients in the U.S. alone, we need to continue identifying efficiencies that will ensure we can help even more people,” said Stanley T. Crooke, M.D., Ph.D., Founder, Chairman and CEO, n-Lorem Foundation. “Andrew’s understanding of healthcare economics and his extensive experience examining how to effectively address rare and ultra-rare diseases will be informative for our continued work. I know he will be an indispensable complement to our current Board as we continue to expand our work to help those who have been overlooked by traditional healthcare economic models.”

Learn more about n-Lorem’s mission at www.nlorem.org, and please consider giving to n-Lorem to bring hope, possibility and treatment options to these needy patients and families. 

Watch: n-Lorem Foundation: Offering Hope and Help to Nano-rare Patients
Watch: n-Lorem Foundation Delivers Hope and Treatment for Patient with Nano-Rare Disease  

About Andrew W. Lo

Andrew W. Lo is the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, director of MIT’s Laboratory for Financial Engineering, and principal investigator at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His healthcare-related research interests include: new financial engineering tools and business models for drug and device development and healthcare delivery, especially for rare and ultra-rare diseases; statistical methods for incorporating patient preferences into the drug approval process; predicting clinical trial outcomes via machine learning techniques; and novel reimbursement models for creating a robust gene and cell therapy ecosystem. He is a co-founder of BridgeBio Pharma, QLS Advisors, Quantile Health, and Uncommon Cures; a director of AbCellera, Atomwise, BridgeBio, Uncommon Cures, and Vesalius; and a member of the advisory board to the American Cancer Society’s BrightEdge Impact Fund. Lo received his B.A. in economics from Yale University and his A.M. and Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University.

About n-Lorem 

n-Lorem Foundation is a non-profit organization established to apply the efficiency, versatility and specificity of antisense technology to charitably provide experimental antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) medicines to treat nano-rare patients diagnosed with diseases that are the result of a single genetic defect unique to only one or very few individuals.  Nano-rare patients describe a very small group of patients (1-30 worldwide) who, because of their small numbers, have few if any treatment options.  n-Lorem Foundation was created to provide hope to these nano-rare patients by developing individualized ASO medicines, which are short strands of modified DNA that can specifically target the transcripts of a defective gene to correct the abnormality. The advantage of experimental ASO medicines is that they can be developed rapidly, inexpensively and are highly specific. To date, n-Lorem received over 260 applications for treatment with more than 120 nano-rare patients approved.  n-Lorem was founded by Stanley T. Crooke, M.D., Ph.D., former chairman and CEO of Ionis Pharmaceuticals, who founded Ionis Pharmaceuticals in 1989 and, through his vision and leadership, established the company as the leader in RNA-targeted therapeutics. Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. 

To learn more about n-Lorem’s mission at www.nlorem.org, and please consider giving to n-Lorem to bring hope, possibility and treatment options to these patients and families in need.  

n-Lorem contact:

Amy Williford, Ph.D.
Sr. Director of Communications
[email protected]

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