AgeneBio announced that the Company has received an additional $750,000 grant from the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF). The grant will support drug development of AgeneBio's novel GABAA discovery program to treat mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (MCI due to AD) and delay the onset of Alzheimer's dementia. MCI due to AD is an intermediate stage between normal cognition and Alzheimer's dementia in which memory and cognitive abilities are markedly worse than expected for a person's age. Approximately 80% of patients with MCI due to AD progress to Alzheimer's dementia within seven to 10 years. This is the third grant awarded to AgeneBio from the ADDF.
"AgeneBio's GABAA discovery program is a novel approach to delaying the onset of Alzheimer's dementia by targeting the marked hippocampal overactivity that is present during MCI due to AD," said Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, PhD, AgeneBio's Vice President of Research and Development and the Primary Investigator on studies supported by this grant. "We are very grateful to the ADDF, a leader in supporting Alzheimer's research, for its long-term support and confidence in our science. We have made significant progress in advancing the chemistry of our GABAA program and look forward to furthering our program with this support."
AgeneBio's portfolio of drug discovery work is based on the research of its founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Michela Gallagher, PhD, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Principal Investigator of the Neurogenetics and Behavior Center at Johns Hopkins University.
For the last five years, AgeneBio has partnered with Hager Biosciences to advance the chemistry of its GABAA discovery program. With this funding, Dr. Rosenzweig-Lipson and the team from Hager will continue to advance this discovery program to target hippocampal overactivity, which prior research suggests is a major contributor to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in patients with MCI due to AD. This program is designed to enhance the activity of GABA at the GABAA alpha-5 (a5) receptor, which improves memory function under conditions of aging and hippocampal overactivity in preclinical testing.
AgeneBio's novel GABAA α5 small molecule program is in discovery stage with potential to address unmet needs for several diseases of the central nervous system including MCI due to AD, autism and schizophrenia. The GABAA α5 Positive Allosteric Modulator (PAM) program targets hippocampal overactivity, which prior research suggests is a major contributor to cognitive decline and MCI due to AD. GABA functions as an inhibitory neurotransmitter thus limiting overactivity of neurons. With a high density of GABAA α5 receptors in the hippocampus, compounds that act as GABAA α5 PAMs are well positioned to attenuate and control hippocampal overactivity. This discovery program is designed to enhance the activity of GABA at the GABA-A a5 receptor, which improves memory function in preclinical testing under conditions of hippocampal overactivity and aging. Proof of biology studies demonstrate that GABAA α5 PAMs from multiple structural classes occupy GABAA α5 receptors in the hippocampus and improve memory impairment in aged animals.
MCI due to AD is a clinical condition between normal aging and early Alzheimer's dementia characterized by impaired memory. There is no treatment for MCI due to AD, sometimes referred to as the pre-dementia stage of Alzheimer's disease, and most patients progress to Alzheimer's dementia within seven to 10 years. Today 5.6 million Americans and 25 million people globally suffer from MCI due to AD, and this population will double by 2030. By age 85, one of every three people will have Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's disease currently costs Medicare and Medicaid $150 billion in direct medical costs annually, which are expected to exceed $1 trillion by 2050. Data from the Alzheimer's Association suggests that a five-year delay in the onset of Alzheimer's dementia could reduce its prevalence by more than 40%.