partnerships for bodies such as MJFF.

I am pleased with the renewed focus of MJFF which 2-3 years ago seemed to be wallowing in "academia", e.g. the obsession with a biomarker (not to understate the importance of that).

MJFF should be all about getting product to market in the shortest possible time and industry partnerships are an essential part of this. The effectiveness of partnership can be seen by the pace of Ceregene's partnered trials and Neurologix. Despite being first to trial, Neuroloix is yet to enter Phase II trials whilst Ceregene is well under way with its PII trial. Neurologix want funding assistance:

"Others wish they had that stamp of approval. "People ask us why we don't have funding from Michael J. Fox," says John Mordock, chief of Neurologix (otcbb: NRGX.OB - news - people ), a biotech company that has completed an early stage gene therapy trial for Parkinson's".

showing that the market is receptive to this approach.

Press on MJFF, some partnerships will fail but isn't that the way of biotech life ?

Neil.