Community project funding/congressionally directed spending - construction - cure rare disease (CRD) is a nonprofit biotechnology company dedicated to the development of life-saving gene therapies for…

Community project funding/congressionally directed spending - construction - cure rare disease (CRD) is a nonprofit biotechnology company dedicated to the development of life-saving gene therapies for patients, primarily pediatric, who are impacted by progressive, rare genetic disorders for which there is no cure. The genesis of cure rare disease is extremely personal - the founder's brother, terry horgan, is impacted by a rare, neuromuscular disease that has no treatment. A new approach to treat these rare and ultra-rare diseases is necessary and thus was born CRD. Through a collaboration of the nation's top scientists and clinicians, CRD has developed a first-in-human crispr (genome editing) based drug for terry and is developing a battery of therapeutics for over 15 other unique genetic mutations. To expand the mission and impact on the lives of rare disease patients, CRD established a physical lab footprint in the state of connecticut. CRD acquired a promising lab space at 4 research drive in woodbridge, CT (new haven county) where we will renovate an existing building to be fit for research and development activities. CRD currently funds numerous scientists and our goal is to bring those scientists in house to be able to focus more of their time and energies on our mission. The building is a 30,000SQFT facility comprised of two levels of lab space. We are requesting support to renovate the building which will include both exterior renovations as well as interior renovations. The exterior renovations will include refurbishing the parking lot, repairing and cleaning portions of the building which have fallen into disrepair and ensuring ADA compliance of the building. We have enlisted the support of a local, well-respected architectural firm, svigals + partners, to support the architectural analysis and drawings for the building. This group offers potential contractors to use for renovations. Interior renovations includes construction for revamping existing lab space and installation of necessary components such as lab benches, vacuum hoods, equipment for tissue cultures, equipment for housing and rodent animal models. We anticipate hiring 4-10 research personnel to support ongoing operations, all of whom will be yielded from new haven county. Research personnel will focus their efforts on ideating and generating novel therapeutic technologies for the aforementioned patients. Of note, several of our rare disease patients live in new haven and fairfield counties.