Alzheon Inc. has raised $100 million in a series E financing round to push its oral drug candidate for early Alzheimer’s disease (AD), ALZ-801 (valiltramiprosate), through a late-stage, Apolloe4 study.
The recent licensing agreement that Alzpath Inc. signed with Roche AG for use of its pTau217 antibody to develop and commercialize an Alzheimer's disease diagnostic blood test will not only transform the company but also allow patients access to a more cost-effective test, Venkat Shastri, CEO of Alzpath told BioWorld.
Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.
Just as it is for terminally ill cancer patients, time is of the essence for people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. Thus, the clinical meaningfulness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s donanemab is the time it gives patients before the disease progresses, Reisa Sperling, a neurology professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Alzheimer’s Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, told the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee June 10.
For the U.S. FDA’s Peripheral and Central Nervous System Drugs Advisory Committee, the medical need and the effectiveness of Eli Lilly and Co.’s Alzheimer’s candidate, donanemab, outweighs the safety concerns and lack of data for underrepresented groups and special needs patients. The panel voted unanimously, 11-0, June 10 that the available data show donanemab is effective in treating Alzheimer’s in the population enrolled in Lilly’s clinical trials and that the benefits of the amyloid-targeting monoclonal antibody outweigh the risks in the study population of patients with mild cognitive impairment and mild dementia.
Although the U.S. FDA unexpectedly sprang the news on Eli Lilly and Co. that it would hold an advisory committee meeting on the BLA for the company’s Alzheimer’s disease drug, donanemab, the agency’s briefing document for the June 10 meeting doesn’t appear to hold any surprises.
An experimental drug that restored the normal function of ion channels in Alzheimer's disease (AD) prevented the loss of neurons and reduced the accumulation of amyloid-β (Aβ) plaques and hyperphosphorylated tau formed in this condition. A new class of small molecules, collectively called ReS19-T and developed by scientists at the Belgian biotechnology company Remynd NV, reorganized proteins that modulated calcium channels. Now in the clinical phase, this approach could benefit patients suffering from neurodegenerative disorders.
Chinese investigators have reported that high levels of triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells 2 (TREM2) expression, which are immunosuppressive in multiple solid tumors, were protective in glioblastoma multiforme (GBM). The findings were published May 23, 2024, in Cancer Cell.
AC Immune SA has landed a potential $2.2 billion deal for its anti-amyloid beta Alzheimer’s disease vaccine, ACI-24.060, with Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., under which it will get $100 million up front and is eligible to receive an option exercise fee, plus potential development, commercial and sales-based milestones of up to $2.1 billion.
