A COMPLEX DISEASE NEEDING A MULTI-MODAL APPROACH
The magnitude of the Alzheimer’s disease crisis is well documented, with nearly 6 million Americans currently living with the disease and more than 35 million worldwide affected.
The cost to the U.S. healthcare system is now estimated to be $290 billion and expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2050. It’s estimated that the ability to diagnose and treat Alzheimer’s early and accurately could save as much as $8 trillion in future medical care and costs.
Alzheimer’s disease involves a number of biological functions in its pathogenesis. While unsuccessful efforts to develop treatments have been principally focused on preventing the formation of amyloid-beta and/or dissolving amyloid plaques (long thought to be the primary cause of disease), research has now turned to alternative methods, including inhibiting neuroinflammatory pathways in early stage Alzheimer’s patients.
Building on this hypothesis, we have developed ALZT-OP1, an investigational therapy for the treatment of early Alzheimer’s disease and have just completed a global Phase 3 clinical trial in this patient population. (See Pipeline for more on the clinical development) ALZT-OP1 uses a multi-modal approach to slow or halt the progression of disease using a proprietary combination of two previously approved small molecules that have been optimized to cross the blood-brain barrier and provide a sufficient daily dose to potentially suppress the brain’s neuroinflammatory response.
“Beyond the amyloid approach, an alternate line of thought based on the role of mast cells and microglia is neuroinflammation and the potential targeting of these cells for the treatment of AD represents a paradigm shift in therapeutic strategies.”
RECRUITMENT OF MICROGLIA TO PLAQUES AND THE CLEARANCE OF Aß BY MICROGLIA
Immunolabeling of brain tissue:
Amyloid plaques (green)
Microglia (red)
Cell nuclei (blue)
Source: Zhang, C., Griciuc, Ana, Hudry, E., et al, Nature Scientific Reports, 18 January, 2018
ALZT-OP1 is designed to:
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