The group is a part of the French Association against the Myopathies (AFM). The AFM charity was founded in 1958 by volunteers: parents and people concerned by neuromuscular diseases. Its objective is to cure neuromuscular diseases (including SMA) with two key missions: "to understand", in order to develop the biotherapies and ultimately to cure these diseases and "to help", in order to reduce the handicap and the exclusion caused by these diseases.
The AFM promotes genetic knowledge; it funds research and has attracted numerous laboratories in France and worldwide to develop tools for a cure. To finance such missions, the AFM has, since 1987, organised a yearly "Téléthon" to collect funds and gain public awareness. For SMA, the Téléthon's funds helped French researchers to complete the mapping (1990) and the identification (1995) of the SMN gene. Since 1995 the AFM's "After gene program" has funded more than 30 labs each year to research and develop therapeutic approaches based on knowledge of genetics and the function of the SMN protein. The latest therapeutic strategies currently in pre-clinical evaluation were reviewed in a meeting held in May 2003 in Evry, France, which led to the creation of a task force to prepare for future clinical trials.