About One Mind

Our Mission: One Mind is a new-model non-profit organization that will take the lead role in the research, funding, marketing, and public awareness of mental illness and brain injury, by bringing together the governmental, corporate, scientific, and philanthropic communities in a concerted effort to drastically reduce the social and economic effects of mental illness and brain injury within ten years. With ONE MIND as the hub for open-source big data and research, compelling the scientific, health care, and pharmaceutical communities to collaborate completely for the common good, we can decrease the time from research to treatment/cure from 30 years to less than a decade.

1 in 3 people will suffer brain illness or injury in their lifetime.
Brain diseases and injuries cost society as much as $2 TRILLION per year in the US and EU.
Brain disorders and injuries cost society more than cancer and cardiovascular disease COMBINED.
1.7 MILLION Americans have Autism.
1.7 MILLION Americans suffer a Traumatic Brain Injury every year.
Approximately 1 million Americans suffer from Parkinson’s disease.
Over 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s Disease.
For every soldier killed in war in 2012, about 25 veterans took their own lives.
Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is one of the LEADING CAUSES OF DEATH AND DISABILITY in America.
By 2023, over 46 million American adults will suffer from a mental disorder.
53,000 Americans die every year due to Traumatic Brain Injury.
8 teenagers die EVERY DAY in the US from TBI.
Neurological disorders constitute 12% of total deaths globally each year.
There are 5 MILLION Americans living with TBI-related disabilities.
Mental disorders make up 35% of the cost of all non-communicable diseases worldwide.
5.3 MILLION Americans have lifelong disabilities due to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).
Direct and indirect cost of TBI is $76 BILLION per year in the US.
Nearly 8% of the US population suffers from POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS in their lifetime.
300,000 soldiers suffer TBI and/or PTS.
Women are about twice as likely as men to develop PTSD.
There is 1 military suicide per day in the US.
FOUR people commit suicide EVERY HOUR in the United States.
In the U.S., serious mental illness causes earnings loss of $193.2 billion annually.
90% of suicide victims have a TREATABLE MENTAL DISORDER.
Nearly 10% of people with SCHIZOPHRENIA commit suicide.
Number one sport per capita for traumatic brain injury is GIRLS SOCCER.
HALF A MILLION children under 14 go to the emergency room every year for TBI.
Funding for brain research from government and pharmaceutical companies is DECREASING EVERY YEAR.
Someone develops Alzheimer’s Disease EVERY 68 SECONDS.
Alzheimer’s Disease is the 6th LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH in US adults.
Traumatic brain injury is the leading cause of death and disability in children and young adults.
TBI patients are up to 5 times more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease.
Medicaid and Medicare spend $130 BILLION per year on Alzheimer’s patients.
One in 10 high school athletes involved in contact sports sustain a concussion each year.
Over 400,000 Americans have Multiple Sclerosis.
An athlete who sustains a concussion is 5 times more likely to sustain a second concussion.
People with TBI are nearly twice as likely to report binge drinking.
The lowest rates of Multiple Sclerosis are in countries nearest to the EQUATOR.
20% of U.S. troops returning from combat tours show symptoms of PTSD or major depression.
DEPRESSION is the LEADING CAUSE of disease burden in the U.S.
Nearly 7% of American adults had a MAJOR DEPRESSIVE EPISODE in the past 12 months.
81.1 million people will be affected by dementia by 2040.
Over 2 MILLION Americans over the age of 18 suffer from BIPOLAR DISORDER.
About one in 10 individuals will have at least one epileptic seizure in their lifetime.
TBI victims are 50% more likely to suffer from depression.
Over 2 MILLION Americans have SCHIZOPHRENIA.
Among people with MS, physical disability contributes to a nearly 70% unemployment rate.
The annual medical cost of Schizophrenia in the US is OVER $32B.

About One Mind

About One Mind

THE PROBLEM
Brain disorders affect more than 60 million Americans—that is more than one in four Americans suffering from mental illness or brain injury. From Autism and Alzheimer’s disease to Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), brain ailments cost the U.S. close to $1 trillion each year.  Insufficient funding for research, slowness in developing new, effective treatments, and the extreme social stigma associated with brain disease and injury result in this being the BIGGEST CHALLENGE TO HEALTH CARE TODAY. Cancer and heart disease affect far fewer people, yet receive three to five times more funding support than brain diseases.

THE STATUS QUO
The brain is the least understood organ in the human body, and there is far less large-scale research on brain illness and injury being conducted than other major diseases.  The research that is being conducted is small-scale, siloed, and data and results are not shared.  The result: almost no progress in developing treatments and cures for brain disease.  Government funding is largely fragmented, funding many small studies rather than major research projects that could lead to more significant results; and federal funding is likely to decrease dramatically. Corporate funding, primarily from the pharmaceutical industry, has already decreased so dramatically that it can be considered insignificant. Translating research results to cures is called, by the scientific community, the “valley of death.”  It takes too many years and is so difficult to cross that few ever attempt. For pharmaceutical products, it takes at least 15 years from development to delivery. The current system clearly does not work.

THE SOLUTION
A revolutionary change in the way brain research is funded, combining private philanthropy, government funding, and corporate investment with policy improvement that accelerate the research-to-cure time frame exponentially. This is the mission of ONE MIND.

THE ONE MIND MODEL
An independent, non-profit organization that is a consortium of a broad international coalition of scientists, advocates, philanthropists, the pharmaceutical and health-care industries, and government dedicated to delivering accelerated new treatments and cures for all brain illness and injury. Our vision: mankind lives free of the personal, social, and economic ravages of brain disease. Our roadmap to accomplish this “stretch” goal is:

  • create paradigm-changing Public Private Partnerships that leverage government, industry and other global efforts;
  • secure new sources of major funding and use this funding to change incentives and siloed behavior;
  • transform policy and enact patent reform by uniting the advocacy community under a single umbrella;
  • reduce stigma and discrimination; and
  • establish standards for fair treatment of those suffering from any brain disease. We also intend to establish a CEO Neuroscience Roundtable, similar to the CEO Cancer Roundtable (which now has 8 million people operating under a Gold Standard of corporate behavior).


10 YEAR SCIENTIFIC PLAN
One Mind has succeeded in getting the buy-in of virtually every major research university, society, NIH Department and advocacy group involved in brain disorders.  For the first time in the history of our country, and for any disease state, a 10-year plan was jointly built and will guide a more efficient, non-siloed approach to research.  The plan was presented in May of 2011 and was publically endorsed by the Vice President of the United States. It addresses the requirements for basic science, translational efforts, and regulatory reform necessary to achieve the mission of cures in the next decade.  It mandates data sharing, cooperative efforts and facilitates public-private partnerships with pre-competitive IP sharing. One Mind has begun to implement the plan through a series of public-private partnerships (see accomplishments below) and has launched the global fundraising required to support it.

LEADERSHIP
One Mind is led by CEO Pete Chiarelli, U.S. Army General (retired) who as Vice Chief of Staff of the Army led the DOD efforts on Post-Traumatic Stress (PTS), Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and suicide prevention. 

One Mind was founded by former Congressman Patrick Kennedy, who led the passage of the mental health parity bill, and Garen Staglin who, with his wife Shari, founded the International Mental Health Research Organization (IMHRO).

Steven Hyman, Director of MIT-Broad Institute Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, chairs the Strategic Advisory Board. Board members currently include Matt Bowman, the founder of RCT Ligic LLC and former CEO of Marrill Lynch Ventures; Gary Gottlieb, CEO of the Partners Healthcare in Boston; Susan Viniar, a community volunteer who has been a board member or trustee for numerous organizations; and Shumeet Banerji, a senior partner of Booz & Company who also sits on the board of Hewlett-Packard. 

One Mind for Research is currently a division of the non-profit International Mental Health Research Organization, but will soon be a stand-alone non-profit organization.

FUNDRAISING GOALS AND PROGRESS
One Mind’s goal is to raise substantial funding to supplement and leverage the existing federal research expenditures for mental health.  There is no American Brain Association to compare with the American Heart and American Cancer Association.  One Mind’s goal is to fill that gap. Industry has begun to sign up and contribute because they believe that the knowledge and insights that will be generated from One Mind’s efforts will help them to increase R&D productivity and accelerate translating research to treatments and cures.  To date, major pharmaceutical companies, corporations, foundations, and individuals have contributed cash and in-kind resources to support the foundation and launch of One Mind. We are poised to move forward on our initial major scientific programs if we achieve our funding goals for 2013.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
One Mind has already developed and launched research programs that will form the template of our business model.  They include:

  • an International Disease Network Alliance for TBI & PTS that incorporates the best data, expertise and IT platforms from government (DOD, VA, NIH), academia, advocacy groups and industry to establish a unique neuroscience knowledge discovery framework;  
  • a brain data exchange portal that will facilitate a global open science approach;
  • a Multiple Sclerosis disease network; and 
  • an ambitious biorepository and data-sharing program now in use and hosted at the Neuroscience Information Framework.