James Heywood is the Founding Director of the ALS Therapy Development Institute, a non-profit biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Heywood entered the field of ALS research in 1999 when his younger brother, Stephen Heywood, was diagnosed with the disease. His innovative economic, business, and scientific approaches to dealing with his brother's illness have already modified the ALS drug discovery field. The ALS Therapy Development Foundation (ALS TDF) runs the only operational nonprofit biotechnology laboratory of its kind in the world with an annual budget of $4 million and a staff of over 30 employees dedicated to developing new treatments for ALS. ALS TDF was formed from Heywood's personal experience with an understanding of ALS patients' needs, as well as the market opportunity in the ALS/orphan disease space. Heywood has been profiled by the Pulitzer Prize winning author Jonathan Weiner, in the biography His Brother's Keeper, as well as in a segment on 60 Minutes II and in The New Yorker magazine. Most recently, Heywood and ALS TDF were profiled in the documentary So Much So Fast, which premiered at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival.
