Tag: Probiodrug

Food for Thought: Key to Stopping Alzheimer’s Disease

In Germany, newpapers are widely reporting about a recent paper by a team of researchers led by  Thomas Bayer from Ernst-August University Goettingen, Germany, in which the team reports about an approach able to halt the progress of Alzheimer’s disease in mice.

For a long time, researchers have tried to stop Alzheimer’s disease (AD) by either dissolving the plaques found in the brains of AD patients or by trying to get rid of the so-called Abeta peptide that is believed to aggregate to plaques. However, none of these approaches has been successful so far.

A couple of years ago, researchers from the biotech company Probiodrug AG (Halle, Germany) found that the major culprit for the detrimental aggregation of peptides to plaques is not Abeta as such, but a variation carrying a pyroglutamate residue. This pyroglutamated Abeta peptide (pGlu-Abeta), they found, is generated by a hitherto unknown reaction catalyzed by the brain enzyme glutaminyl cyclase (QC). pGlu-formation leads to stabilization of the peptide and protection against cleavage. Moreover, Probiodrug has been able to demonstrate that pGlu-Abeta peptides show increased neurotoxicity, a prolonged half-life and an increased tendency for aggregation. They also form the seeds of the typical plaques observed in the brain of AD patients.

While Probiodrug is developing small molecule inhibitors of the QC enzyme to halt the disease, Thomas Bayer (who is a member of Probiodrug’s Scientific Advisory Board) and his team generated a monoclonal antibody against pGlu-Abeta. Passive immunization of transgenic mice models of AD  with this monoclonal antibody significantly reduced overall Abeta plaque load and levels of pGlu-Abeta, and also normalized behavioral deficit in the mice.

Later this month during the Neuroscience 2010 conference, Probiodrug will demonstrate that increasing pGlu-Abeta potentiates the behavioral deficits observed with transgenic AD mouse models significantly, and will also presented data showing that inhibitors of QC can reduce the level of pyroglutamated beta-amyloid species and alleviate the observed behavioral changes.

While the approach presented by Thomas Bayer will take a few years to reach the clinic, Probiodrug’s first small molecule QC inhibitor already has reached the regulatory phase.

Company News: Probiodrug Appoints Kumar Srinivasan as Chief Business Officer

Probiodrug (Halle, Germany) has appointed Dr Kumar Srinivasan, previously Vice President, Global Business Development at Wyeth, to Chief Business Officer. Wyeth was acquired by Pfizer in 2009. Probiodrug has a focus on neurodegenerative diseases, in particular Alzheimer’s disease. In this indication, the company pursues a novel target and pathway and is preparing for the start of clinical development of one of its lead candidates, a small molecule inhibitor of the enzyme glutaminyl cyclase (QC). Kumar Srinivasan, MBA, has a background as research chemist and is an experienced pharma / biotech dealmaker. He will be responsible for Probiodrug’s global business development activities and will be based in Philadelphia, PA. The full press release can be found here.

Company News: Probiodrug Obtains Patent, Expands Boards, Wins Award

Alzheimer-specialist Probiodrug AG last week not only obtained a new US patent covering the inhibition of the enzyme glutaminyl cyclase (QC) for the treatment of CNS diseases. The company also announced the appointment of Dr Claus Braestrup, former President & CEO of Lundbeck A/S to Chairman of the Supervisory Board and Prof Dr Lennart Mucke, Director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease in San Francisco, Calif. to its Scientific Advisory Board.  Moreover, the company was awarded the “IQ Innovationspreis Mitteldeutschland” by the Industrial Initiative for Central Germany for its innovative therapeutic strategy to combat Alzheimer’s disease. In May, Probiodrug hosted the PSP 2010 conference with more than 150 scientists to discuss its approach.

1 2 3