WASHINGTON (AP) — Bloomberg LP CEO Daniel Doctoroff is joining with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and David Rubenstein of Washington-based private equity firm The Carlyle Group to fund a $25 million initiative for treatment of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

They announced the three-year initiative called Target ALS on Thursday to provide a new system for sharing and coordinating findings among researchers. It will be managed by researchers at Columbia University Medical Center.

Target ALS is the next phase of a research initiative of New York-based Project A.L.S. and the Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore.

Researchers say the short-term goal is to facilitate drug-development programs at pharmaceutical and biotech companies. The longer-term goal is to find effective therapies for the disease.

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