Month: May 2022

SOLVE FSHD’s Venture Philanthropy Model

The model will enable SOLVE FSHD to be financially self-sustainable through return on investments.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, May 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Following SOLVE FSHD’s recent acclaimed launch, the organization is pleased to formally announce the appointment of Dr. Eva Chin as the Executive Director. SOLVE FSHD’s Founder, Chip Wilson, has personally committed USD100 million to find a cure for facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD), a rare disease he was diagnosed with at the age of 32. As the inaugural Executive Director for SOLVE FSHD, Dr. Chin will be responsible for aligning the organization’s goals with the expertise of researchers, scientists and companies to promote and fund the discovery and development of new therapies for FSHD.

“Dr. Chin’s experience and specialization in rare neuromuscular diseases add immense value to our organization. We are excited to gain her expertise and guidance to achieve the organization’s goal of finding a cure for FSHD by December 2027,” says Chip Wilson, SOLVE FSHD Founder. He added, “Within just a few weeks of the organization’s launch, SOLVE FSHD has received a tremendous response to the call for qualified grant applications and new therapeutic technologies, which will be reviewed under Dr. Chin’s leadership. In addition, she has worked tirelessly to build strong industry alliances for SOLVE FSHD, closely assessed the exciting projects to fund and facilitated collaborative funding opportunities across the academic and industry sectors in FSHD research and drug development.”

Dr. Chin obtained her Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Waterloo in Canada and completed post-doctoral training at the University of Sydney, Australia and U.T. Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, focusing on intracellular calcium in muscle fatigue and transcriptional regulation of gene expression in muscle fibre type determination and muscle plasticity.

“I am honoured to join the Solve FSHD team, supporting Chip and the Wilson Family in our mission to improve the quality of life for those affected by rare neuromuscular diseases by funding qualified research projects and pre-clinical and clinical research that will accelerate finding a cure for FSHD,” says Dr. Eva Chin, Solve FSHD Executive Director.

Dr. Chin’s career has spanned the academic and pharmaceutical industries, with previous positions at Pfizer, the University of Maryland, MyoTherapeutics, Cytokinetics and NMD Pharma. While at Pfizer, Eva shifted her career from academic research focusing on cellular and molecular mechanisms of muscle function to discovering and developing muscle-targeted therapies. Over the past five years, she has led the nonclinical development of numerous drug candidates in clinical trials for ALS, SMA, myasthenia gravis and hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.

Under Dr. Chin’s guidance, Solve FSHD’s venture-philanthropic funding model will strategically utilize Wilson’s monetary commitment to support the initial grants, investments in early-stage companies focused on FSHD and to incentivize pharmaceutical companies in the neuromuscular disease space to increase their focus on FSHD. The venture philanthropy model will enable the organization to be financially self-sustainable through return on investments. The investments in viable, albeit high-risk, research opportunities may generate a continued re-investment stream into the organization to further support grant funding initiatives.

“To take advantage of recent advances in genetic therapeutics, SOLVE FSHD constructed a creative funding platform to facilitate the development of treatments that rapidly slow, stop or even reverse weakness in FSHD,” said Dr. John Day, MD, Ph.D., Director of Stanford University’s Neuromuscular Medicine program. “Having someone with Dr. Eva Chin’s experience and capabilities join SOLVE FSHD is critical to establishing the scientifically rigorous program needed to define and validate safe and effective treatments as quickly as possible,” says Dr. John Day, MD, Ph.D., Neuromuscular Medicine, Stanford Neuroscience Health Center.

About Solve FSHD
Solve FSHD is funding innovative biotech and biopharma research and development activities that accelerate novel treatments of Facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) treatment. It is fully funded and created by Canadian entrepreneur and philanthropist Chip Wilson. The founder of yoga-inspired athletic apparel company Lululemon Athletica inc. has been living with FSHD for the last three decades of his life. He has committed $100 million of his own money to create SOLVE FSHD and kick-start funding into projects that fit the organization’s mission: accelerate research into new therapies and find a cure for the disorder by 2027.

Future announcements for grant funding will be issued on SOLVE FSHD’s website – https://solvefshd.com/. For early-stage companies, contact SOLVE FSHD at info@solvefshd.com.

If you have FSHD and want to find out about clinical trials or be included in the FSHD registry, please see SOLVE FSHD’s website – https://solvefshd.com/

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A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/0e87aacb-92f4-4723-9e7e-e24021cff5f7

New solution will allow businesses to aggregate and calculate life cycle assessments quickly and at scale

CHICAGO, May 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sphera®, a leading global provider of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance and risk management software, data and consulting services, today announced the launch of its new Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Automation software, building upon the company’s existing LCA solutions. The move comes as investor and regulatory pressures surrounding the standardization and digitalization of end-to-end sustainability data measurement continue to mount, necessitating increasingly sophisticated and granular reporting and compliance tools.

Sphera’s next-generation solution integrates seamlessly with customers’ existing systems for rapid deployment, allowing customers to quickly receive holistic, real-time analysis and insights into the environmental footprint of their product portfolios. It also features extensive managed content that enables customers to instantaneously calculate their carbon footprint at scale and model how adjustments to specific variables—such as leveraging a cleaner power source or altering production processes—may affect emissions outputs.

The LCA Automation solution serves as an extension of Sphera’s existing Product Sustainability capabilities which include life cycle assessment software and content. The service allows a company to increase the number of LCAs by a factor of 1,000, in turn enabling the experienced LCA professional to focus on analyzing and improving results, versus creating them.

The overarching goal of Sphera’s LCA Automation tool is to help businesses—especially those in sectors with complex supply chains, such as manufacturing, consumer goods, paints and chemicals—to more effectively reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at every step of production, from design to disassembly. Improved forecasting will facilitate holistic corporate decisions with sustainability incorporated at each stage, allowing teams to proactively predict and control environmental impact.

Paul Marushka, Sphera’s CEO and president, says: “Historically, LCAs have been viewed as voluntary, ad-hoc add-ons to broader corporate sustainability efforts. However, with consumer awareness growing in-step with regulatory mandates to mitigate the effects of climate change, LCA Automation feeds into the highest needs of decarbonization. As recent moves from the EU, SEC and the latest IPCC report have shown, financial and reputational fallout from a failure to act are very much a ‘when’, not an ‘if’.”

Continues Marushka, “From helping engineers create more sustainable products to enabling procurement professionals to establish lower carbon emission supply chains, LCA Automation will transform decision-making, for the benefit of both businesses and our planet.”

About Sphera
Sphera is the leading provider of Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) performance and risk management software, data and consulting services focusing on Environment, Health, Safety & Sustainability (EHS&S), Operational Risk Management and Product Stewardship. For more than 30 years, we have served over 3,000 customers and a million-plus users in 80 countries to help companies keep their people safe, their products sustainable and their operations productive. Learn more about Sphera at www.sphera.com. Follow Sphera on LinkedIn.

Contact Information:
Astrid Dickinson
sphera@aspectusgroup.com

Nova solução irá viabilizar que as empresas agreguem e calculem avaliações do ciclo de vida rapidamente e em escala

CHICAGO, May 11, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A Sphera®, principal fornecedora global de serviços de software e de dados e consultoria de desempenho e gerenciamento de risco Ambiental, Social e de Governança (ESG), anunciou hoje o lançamento do seu novo software Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Automation, com base nas soluções LCA existentes da empresa. A mudança ocorre à medida que as pressões regulatórias e dos investidores em torno da padronização e digitalização da medição de dados completos de sustentabilidade continuem a aumentar, exigindo ferramentas de relatórios e conformidade cada vez mais sofisticadas e granulares.

A solução da próxima geração da Sphera se integra perfeitamente aos sistemas existentes dos clientes para implantação rápida, permitindo que os clientes recebam rapidamente análises holísticas e em tempo real e insights sobre a pegada ambiental dos portfólios dos seus produtos. Ela também tem um extenso conteúdo gerenciado que permite que os clientes calculem instantaneamente sua pegada de carbono em escala e modelem como os ajustes a variáveis específicas – como o uso de uma fonte de energia mais limpa ou a alteração dos processos de produção – podem afetar as emissões.

A solução LCA Automation serve como uma extensão dos recursos existentes de Sustentabilidade do Produto da Sphera, que incluem software e conteúdo de avaliação do ciclo de vida. O serviço permite que uma empresa aumente 1.000 vezes o número de ACVs, viabilizando que o profissional experiente em ACV se concentre na análise a aprimoramento dos resultados, e não na sua criação.

O objetivo geral da ferramenta LCA Automation da Sphera é ajudar as empresas – especialmente aquelas em setores com cadeias de suprimentos complexas, como manufatura, bens de consumo, tintas e produtos químicos – a reduzir de forma mais eficaz suas emissões de gases de efeito estufa (GEE) em cada etapa da produção, desde o projeto até à desmontagem. O aprimoramento da previsão facilitará as decisões corporativas holísticas com a sustentabilidade incorporada em cada estágio, permitindo que as equipes prevejam e controlem proativamente o impacto ambiental.

Paul Marushka, CEO e presidente da Sphera, disse: “Historicamente, as ACVs têm sido vistas como complementos voluntários e ad hoc para esforços mais amplos de sustentabilidade corporativa. No entanto, com o aumento do conhecimento do consumidor quanto aos mandatos regulatórios para mitigar os efeitos das mudanças climáticas, o LCA Automation se alimenta das mais altas necessidades de descarbonização. Como mostraram as recentes mudanças da UE, da SEC e do último relatório do IPCC, as consequências financeiras e de reputação de uma omissão é uma questão de “quando” e não de “se”.”

Continuou Marushka: “Desde ajudar os engenheiros a criar produtos mais sustentáveis até permitir que os profissionais de aquisição estabeleçam cadeias de fornecimento de emissões de carbono mais baixas, o LCA Automation transformará a tomada de decisões, em benefício das empresas e do nosso planeta.”

Sobre a Sphera A
A Sphera é a principal fornecedora de serviços de software e de dados e consultoria de desempenho e gerenciamento de risco Ambiental, Social e de Governança (ESG), com foco em Meio Ambiente, Saúde, Segurança e Sustentabilidade (EHS&S), Gerenciamento de Riscos Operacionais e Administração de Produtos. Há mais de 30 anos atendemos mais de 3.000 clientes e mais de um milhão de usuários em 80 países para ajudar as empresas a manter suas pessoas seguras, seus produtos sustentáveis e suas operações produtivas. Saiba mais sobre a Sphera em www.sphera.com. Siga a Sphera no LinkedIn.

Informações de Contato:
Astrid Dickinson
sphera@aspectusgroup.com

Cette nouvelle solution permettra aux entreprises d’agréger et de calculer rapidement et à grande échelle les évaluations du cycle de vie

CHICAGO, 11 mai 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Sphera®, l’un des principaux fournisseurs mondiaux de logiciels, de données et de services de conseil en matière de performance et de gestion des risques environnementaux, sociaux et de gouvernance (ESG), a annoncé aujourd’hui le lancement de son nouveau logiciel d’automatisation de l’évaluation du cycle (ACV), s’appuyant sur les solutions ACV existantes de l’entreprise. Cette évolution intervient alors que les pressions des investisseurs et réglementaires concernant la normalisation et la numérisation de la mesure des données de durabilité de bout en bout continuent de monter, ce qui nécessite des outils de reporting et de conformité de plus en plus sophistiqués et granulaires.

La solution de nouvelle génération de Sphera s’intègre de manière transparente aux systèmes existants des clients pour un déploiement rapide, permettant ainsi aux clients de recevoir rapidement une analyse holistique en temps réel et des informations sur l’empreinte environnementale de leurs portefeuilles de produits. Elle comprend également un contenu géré étendu qui permet aux clients de calculer instantanément leur empreinte carbone à grande échelle et de modéliser la manière dont les ajustements à des variables spécifiques, tels que l’exploitation d’une source d’énergie plus propre ou la modification des processus de production, peuvent affecter les émissions.

La solution d’automatisation ACV sert d’extension des capacités existantes de développement durable des produits de Sphera, qui comprennent un logiciel et le contenu d’évaluation du cycle de vie. Le service permet à une entreprise de multiplier par 1 000 le nombre d’ACV, ce qui permet au professionnel expérimenté de l’ACV de se concentrer sur l’analyse et l’amélioration des résultats plutôt que sur leur création.

L’objectif primordial de l’outil d’automatisation ACV de Sphera est d’aider les entreprises, en particulier celles des secteurs disposant de chaînes d’approvisionnement complexes, telles que la fabrication, les biens de consommation, les peintures et les produits chimiques, à réduire plus efficacement leurs émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) à chaque étape de la production, de la conception au démontage. L’amélioration des prévisions facilitera les décisions d’entreprise globales avec la durabilité intégrée à chaque étape, permettant ainsi aux équipes de prévoir et de contrôler de manière proactive l’impact environnemental.

Paul Marushka, PDG et président de Sphera, a déclaré : « Historiquement, les ACV ont été considérés comme des ajouts volontaires et ad hoc aux efforts plus vastes de développement durable de l’entreprise. Cependant, avec la sensibilisation croissante des consommateurs au rythme des mandats réglementaires visant à atténuer les effets du changement climatique, l’automatisation ACV répond aux besoins les plus élevés de décarbonation. Comme l’ont montré les récentes initiatives de l’UE, de la SEC et du dernier rapport du GIEC, les retombées financières et de réputation d’un manquement à agir sont inévitables. »

M. Marushka a ajouté : « Qu’il s’agisse d’aider les ingénieurs à créer des produits plus durables ou de permettre aux professionnels de l’approvisionnement d’établir des chaînes d’approvisionnement à faibles émissions de carbone, l’automatisation ACV transformera la prise de décisions, au profit des entreprises et de notre planète. »

À propos de Sphera
Sphera est un fournisseur mondial de premier plan de services de conseil, de données et de logiciels de gestion des risques et des performances environnementales, sociales et de gouvernance (ESG) mettant un accent tout particulier sur l’environnement, la santé, la sécurité et la durabilité (EHS&S), la gestion des risques opérationnels et la gestion des produits. Depuis plus de 30 ans, nous servons plus de 3 000 clients et plus d’un million d’utilisateurs dans 80 pays afin d’aider les entreprises à maintenir leur personnel en sécurité, la durabilité de leurs produits et la productivité de leurs opérations. Pour en savoir plus sur Sphera, rendez-vous sur www.sphera.com. Suivez Sphera sur LinkedIn.

Coordonnées :
Astrid Dickinson
sphera@aspectusgroup.com