Valo Health Awarded Grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation to Advance Parkinson’s Disease Research

September 09, 2025 at 08:30 AM EDT

Valo to leverage human causal biology expertise to uncover new insights about NOD2 as a potential Parkinson’s disease drug target

Valo Health, Inc. (“Valo”), a company using human data and AI to rapidly discover and develop new medicines, today announced that it has been awarded a research grant from The Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) as part of its Targets to Therapies Initiative, which aims to expand the number of promising druggable biological targets in Parkinson’s disease (PD). Valo was selected for its expertise in leveraging robust human data sets and advanced AI-enabled analytical tools to understand the underlying causes of disease and prioritize targets for new medicines.

Valo will be part of a consortium aimed at advancing our understanding of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain containing 2 (NOD2), which was recently found to be associated with increased risk of PD.¹ Leveraging genetics, multi-omics, and network biology analytics, focusing on both central nervous system and immune cells, Valo will clarify the causal relationships between NOD2 and related pathways at the intersection of PD and autoimmune diseases, to identify optimal strategies for NOD2 modulation to meaningfully impact the progression and severity of this disease.

“The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s single, urgent goal remains to find better therapies and a cure for people and families with Parkinson’s. Expanding the number of well-characterized, druggable targets is a critical part of the puzzle,” said Shalini Padmanabhan, PhD, senior vice president and head translational research at MJFF. “We are encouraged by the field-wide collaboration and open-science approach to target validation in Parkinson’s disease, including through Valo Health’s participation in studying key gaps related to NOD2 as a therapeutic target option to slow down disease progression.”

Valo's novel approach to drug discovery begins with real world data and human preclinical models to start with a better understanding of the causal biology in human disease. The company has unique access to complete, real-world outcomes for more than 17 million patients, some with genomic data and patient histories spanning more than 20 years. Valo partners with researchers across the drug discovery ecosystem to extract knowledge from this extensive data set, understand the mechanisms of disease, prioritize targets for new medicines and rapidly develop new small molecules.

"This collaboration with the Michael J. Fox Foundation is an exciting opportunity to deepen our collective understanding of Parkinson’s disease," said Brian Alexander, MD, MPH, CEO at Valo Health. "Valo's expertise in human causal biology using human genetics and real-world data allows us to unravel the heterogeneity and complexity of human disease, leading to a better understanding of targets for therapeutic exploration, like NOD2 in Parkinson’s. We believe this approach – maximizing learning from patients early in the discovery process – will ultimately change how we develop new medicines.”

About Valo Health:

Valo aims to redefine drug discovery and development by integrating large-scale human observational data, advanced AI, human translational models, and predictive chemistry into a unique drug discovery and development engine: The Opal Platform. Valo uses AI to learn about complex diseases from vast amounts of human data and identify patient subtypes and promising new drug targets. The Company validates disease targets using proprietary 3D engineered human tissue models that mimic mature human tissue physiology and structure, and its closed loop chemical discovery engine is designed to enable the rapid development of potential molecules from trillions of potential starting points. Valo aims to use human data and advanced analytical tools to identify more potential drug targets, faster, and with higher impact potential than traditional R&D methods.

About The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s “Targets to Therapies Initiative”

The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research (MJFF) launched its Targets to Therapies Initiative in 2024 to expand the number of promising, druggable biological targets within the Parkinson’s disease (PD) translational pipeline. Leveraging MJFF’s many years of experience supporting target validation and advancement, the initiative takes a fresh approach combining community-sourced target nomination with expert panel-guided prioritization and validation roadmaps to deliver targets that are ripe for Parkinson’s therapeutic development. These targets stem from efforts across the field, including rich inputs from MJFF research program datasets and collaboration with the Aligning Science Across Parkinson’s (ASAP) initiative-supported programs including the Collaborative Research Network (CRN), the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) and the Global Parkinson’s Genetics Program (GP2). Learn more here.

¹ Nalls MA, Blauwendraat C, Vallerga CL, et al. Identification of novel risk loci, causal insights, and heritable risk for Parkinson's disease: a meta-analysis of genome-wide association studies. Lancet Neurol. 2019 Dec;18(12):1091-1102. doi: 10.1016/S1474-4422(19)30320-5.