AlzeCure begins Alzheimer’s therapy development phase

Candidate will go through the development programme, which includes safety and tolerability studies

AlzeCure – a company that develops a portfolio of small molecule drug candidates for diseases affecting the central nervous system – has announced that it has selected a candidate drug and started the preclinical development phase with its Alzheimer’s candidate ACD680.

The therapy is being developed on AlzeCure’s Alzstatin platform, with a view to developing a preventive and disease-modifying drug for the early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. The candidate will now continue through the preclinical development programme, which includes preclinical safety and tolerability studies, as well as stability testing and formulation work.

In Alzheimer’s disease, a protein – amyloid beta – accumulates into larger aggregates, such as plaques, which have a harmful effect on nerve cells and their function. ACD680 is a gamma-secretase modulator (GSM), which constitutes a promising class of small-molecule anti-amyloidogenic substances for preventive as well as disease-modifying treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

The GSM affects the production of the building blocks connected to harmful amyloid aggregates and exhibits several key properties that distinguish it from antibody treatments. Furthermore, it can be taken in tablet form, easily crosses the blood-brain barrier and can be produced more cost-effectively.

AlzeCure’s chief executive officer, Martin Jönsson, reflected: “We are very pleased to have begun preclinical development with ACD680. We hereby build further on the communicated strategy to strengthen the project portfolio with the development of several candidates in parallel and also demonstrate AlzeCure’s capacity in terms of development and delivery.”

He added: “With the increased interest in the Alzheimer field, we see exciting commercial opportunities for Alzstatin going forward.”

“With Alzstatin, we want to offer a preventive and disease-modifying treatment against Alzheimer’s in the form of an oral therapy, which is non-invasive for patients,” concluded, Gunnar Nordvall, director of medicinal chemistry at AlzeCure. “In addition to affecting an important disease mechanism, ACD680 also derives from a new series of molecules that, among other things, are expected to provide benefits from a patent perspective, with a significantly longer patent period.”