CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA, March 7, 2012 — The Focused Ultrasound Foundation announced today that medical research activist, philanthropist and financier Michael Milken has joined its Council, a select group of advisors and advocates who are helping to advance the organization’s mission. A champion of medical innovations since the 1970’s, Milken will support the Foundation in accelerating the development and adoption of focused ultrasound therapies for many of today’s most devastating illnesses.
“Mike’s tenacity and experience in transforming the way life-threatening disorders are treated will be extremely beneficial to our work,” said Neal F. Kassell, MD, Foundation Chairman. “Whether it’s been through the Milken Family Foundation, the Prostate Cancer Foundation, FasterCures or the Melanoma Research Alliance, Mike’s leadership, dedication and vision to finding ways to impact humanity are part of the reason Fortune magazine cited him as ‘The Man Who Changed Medicine.’ We are looking forward to having Mike involved and are confident that his energy will help us further accelerate progress.”
Commenting on his involvement with the Foundation, Michael Milken said, “As a clinical pioneer for numerous medical innovations, Neal has had a tremendous positive impact on peoples’ lives. I am excited about this opportunity to work with him, the Foundation team and Council members to develop the human capital and technology that can advance a revolutionary way to treat diseases that afflict so many people around the world.”
About Michael Milken
Michael Milken’s career has mirrored his three main professional passions: medical research, education and finance. In each, he has been uniquely successful in creating value, whether measured in lives saved, students inspired or jobs created. Between 1969 and 1989, he financed more than 3,200 companies that collectively created millions of jobs. His philanthropy, which began in the 1970s and paralleled his business career, expanded in 1982 with the establishment of the Milken Family Foundation.
Milken also heads the Prostate Cancer Foundation and FasterCures, a Washington-based think tank that removes barriers to progress against all deadly diseases. In collaboration with leading physicians, he helped launch the Melanoma Research Alliance to support work on fatal skin cancers. He is chairman of the widely respected and influential Milken Institute, an economic think tank whose annual Global Conference brings more than 3,000 leaders from more than 50 nations to Los Angeles each spring.
After graduating with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, Milken earned his MBA at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. He and his wife, Lori, were married in 1968 and have three children and six grandchildren. Details are at www.mikemilken.com.
About Focused Ultrasound
An early-stage medical technology with the potential to revolutionize the treatment of many life threatening and disabling conditions, focused ultrasound is a noninvasive therapeutic technology that uses concentrated ultrasound energy to treat tissue deep in the body while leaving surrounding healthy areas intact. Focused ultrasound could be a potential breakthrough in noninvasive surgery, an alternative or complement to radiation therapy and a way to deliver chemotherapeutics and other drugs at higher concentrations to precise targets with less toxicity. Researchers around the world are investigating the technology’s use in treating many forms of cancer—including bone, brain, breast, liver, pancreas, prostate and thyroid—and neurological conditions such as essential tremor, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, obsessive compulsive disorder and stroke. In the United States, focused ultrasound treatment for uterine fibroids has been approved by the FDA. Additional treatments for other indications are available abroad.
About the Focused Ultrasound Foundation
Based in Charlottesville, Virginia, the Focused Ultrasound Foundation was created improve the lives of millions of people worldwide by accelerating the development and adoption of focused ultrasound. We work to clear the path to global adoption of focused ultrasound by coordinating and funding research and educational activities, creating partnerships and fostering collaboration among the stakeholders, and building awareness for “medicine’s best kept secret.” We are dedicated to ensuring that focused ultrasound finds its place as a mainstream therapy for cancer, brain tumors, Parkinson’s disease, epilepsy, stroke and other life-threatening conditions within years, not decades. Since its establishment in 2006, the Foundation has become the largest non-governmental source of funding for focused ultrasound research.
The Foundation is supporting clinical studies in essential tremor and brain tumors, as well as pending clinical trials for Parkinson’s disease, breast cancer and epilepsy. Complete information about the Foundation and its work can be found online at www.fusfoundation.org.