SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 07, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Finding an effective treatment for Alzheimer's disease has been elusive as many seemingly promising avenues of research did not prove out in clinical trials. Biogen Inc. appeared to be going down the same path after it pulled the plug on its phase 3 aducanumab trials in March. But, in a stunning reversal, Biogen concluded the treatment was effective after all.
Company mentioned: ProMIS Neurosciences Inc. (PMN:TSX; ARFXF:OTCQB)
A small-cap firm, ProMIS Neurosciences Inc., believes its Alzheimer's treatment currently in development, PMN310, will run circles around Biogen's, and is developing treatments for Parkinson's, ALS and other neurodegenerative diseases, all of which are caused by the progressive death of nerve cells.
"When Biogen stopped its aducanumab trial in March," ProMIS CEO Elliot Goldstein, MD, told Streetwise Reports, "it got tremendous negative attention; people felt that the science must be wrong, that targeting amyloid beta wasn't the right thing to do. Investors left the sector in droves."
"But I believe Biogen was targeting the wrong kind of amyloid beta; it comes in several forms and most are harmless," Goldstein explained. "The target is the small clumps of amyloid beta called oligomers that when they misfold are highly toxic and kill neurons."
"Misfolded oligomers have unstructured regions, so you can't isolate them using the usual physical techniques for making antibodies," Goldstein said. "To solve this challenge, we used our proprietary thermodynamic algorithms that run on supercomputers to compute exactly where they're misfolding, and the shape of the misfolding, and then we create, test and validate antibodies that work selectively against that specific toxic form."
Continue reading this article: Could There Finally Be an Effective Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease?
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