| Metropolitan Capital Advisors co-founder Karen Finerman |
Last fall Michael J. Fox returned to network television with The Michael J. Fox Show, a situation comedy about a news anchor returning to work after being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. “Just think of the transformation — there’s a sitcom with the main character having Parkinson’s,” says Karen Finerman, co-founder and chief executive of New York–based hedge fund firm Metropolitan Capital Advisors. “You never would have seen that 15 years ago.”
Fox is credited with bringing Parkinson’s disease out of the shadows with his celebrity and his well-known foundation, the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research. “Michael J. Fox is the best thing that ever happened to Parkinson’s patients because of his incredible likability and his high profile,” Finerman says. “I think it’s made many people more comfortable saying they have Parkinson’s.”
Finerman’s brother-in-law David Golub was the foundation’s first board chairman, and he asked Finerman to join, which she did in 2003. Her motivation for getting involved was her mother-in-law, who had Parkinson’s and died in June 2013.
Parkinson’s is a degenerative neurological disease that has no cure. An estimated 1 million Americans have the disease, although there is no definitive test for it. Fox learned he had young-onset Parkinson’s (diagnosed before age 50; most Parkinson’s is diagnosed after age 60) in 1991, went public with his diagnosis in 1998 and founded the organization in 2000.
Finerman was impressed by the philosophy of the Fox Foundation, born of frustration at the lack of progress into the causes and in finding a cure: Be at the forefront of research into Parkinson’s, and be transparent with research results. “They really had an aggressive agenda of trying to raise as much money as they could, put it to work as quickly as they could and then to shut off funding when it really wasn’t proving fruitful,” she says. That means the organization is constantly raising money, which it does with major donors, like the Brin Wojcicki Foundation, Nike and the now-ubiquitous Team Fox community fundraisers found at events around the world.
Finerman is part of the Great Investors’ Best Ideas Foundation symposium, held in Dallas each fall. The conference is organized by Fox Foundation board member Frederick Rowe of Greenbrier Partners, who has Parkinson’s. Part of the money raised goes to the foundation. Hedge fund luminaries including David Einhorn (who’s also a board member), Michael Price, William Ackman and T. Boone Pickens have taken part. Another annual event big with the hedge fund set is the Playing to Win poker tournament, cohosted by and the brainchild of Einhorn, who donated his 2006 World Series of Poker prize money to the foundation.
In 2011, Finerman and her husband gave $500,000 to launch the New York Stem Cell Foundation–Golub Stem Cell Initiative for Parkinson’s Disease, which is researching stem cell lines from a diverse group of people with Parkinson’s. In October 2013 they furthered that commitment with an additional $250,000 to fund a study with the NYSCF and the Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (sponsored by the Fox Foundation) that will create stem cells from research participants to be studied as keys to how the disease happens.
Deborah Brooks, the Fox Foundation’s co-founder and executive vice chairman, says Finerman always makes sure the right questions are being asked. “She helps crystallize idea and brings clarity to issues,” Brooks says. “She’s a great ally and a great contributor to how we think about risk and returns, particularly in the context of using your heart and head when thinking of Parkinson’s disease.”
Finerman says that at this point the name of the game is to fund as many research projects as possible until one (or more) results in something promising. “I think there’s frustration with the amount of success so far in treating Parkinson’s,” she says. “There’s still somewhat of a hit-or-miss approach; what works for some patients doesn’t work [for others].”
But the Fox Foundation isn’t just about funding research, says Finerman. It wants to help those suffering from Parkinson’s and their loved ones find a community and all the information they need to cope with the disease. It’s also looking for patients to be involved in clinical research trials.
One of the organization’s core goals is to make itself irrelevant, but until more is known about the disease, Finerman says, the Michael J. Fox Foundation will remain at the forefront of finding a cure: “If you were to ask, ‘Who’s in charge of curing Parkinson’s?’ they would say, ‘We are.’”
