Innovative therapy against Alzheimer and Parkinson
Neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Huntington’s or prion diseases are age-dependent neuronal diseases that are characterized by an accumulation of misfolded proteins and neuronal cell death. All of these diseases are currently among the major medical challenges and occur worldwide.
Most of these diseases are currently only treated symptomatically and despite enormous global efforts to develop an effective therapy, no strategy has resulted in a treatment that actively combats the disease
Since past approaches did not lead to an effective treatment, OxAG set out to identify new targets for these disorders. Using C. elegans, which is the gold standard for neuroscience models, OxAG identified a new and innovative target, namely Metallothionein, and developed a new screening assay based on its detoxifying activity.
In 2019 OxAG identified in their Logi-biotic designed library a group of first in class compounds against neurodegenerative diseases, named NeuroMETOX®. Based on the information from that structures OxAG designed novel drug candidates with new mode of action and identified an innovative new therapy approach to treat AD and PD with the following characteristics:
First in-class patented compound with clearly identified pharmacophore, active centre and free sites after med-chem design
Highly active in C. elegans (golden standard neurology model) to treat Alzheimer and Parkinson (better than Quercetin and Levodopa)
Innovative new mode of action (Metallothionein) – a non-toxic strategy to treat the diseases
Supports the natural detoxification without being harmful or toxic
Good pharmacological features such as water solubility, stability and tissue penetration
Small molecule with easy and cheap chemical synthesis – no biologic
Therapeutic area
NeuroMETOX®´s completely new mechanism of action is taking an innovative approach in therapy that enables both prophylactic as wells as therapeutic treatment on patients with reduced side effects. NeuroMETOX® therefore has enormous potential to become the next ground-breaking therapeutic that will change the way neurodegenerative disorders are being treated and be a market landscape in the following therapeutic areas:
Alzheimer disease – the scourge of humanity
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia worldwide and affects thinking skills, behavior, and memory of the patient. It affects neurons associated with the learning part of the cerebrum and disease progression is usually moderate.
Every 3 seconds, a person on this planet develops dementia and in that 70% has been confirmed as Alzheimer’s. An estimated 50 million people currently suffer from Dementia (2020) and this is expected to increase two-fold every 20 years, resulting in 75 million patients in 2030 and 131.5 million by 2050.
The global Alzheimer’s Disease market is predicted to reach 10.5 bn US$ by the end of 2025, growing at a CAGR of 17.5% between 2019-2025.
NeuroMETOX´s completely new mechanism of action is taking an innovative therapeutic approach that enables NeuroMETOX® to become an innovative blockbuster on the market.
Parkinson disease – the loss of independence
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a progressive neurological condition that is caused by the degeneration of dopamine receptors in the basal ganglia. It is the most widespread form of Parkinsonism, a group of disorders that are characterized by two of the four cardinal signs: bradykinesia, rigidity, tremors and postural instability. This disease can become severe if not treated on time. This severity can result in increasing demand for Parkinson’s disease treatment.
According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, around 10 million people across the world are suffering from Parkinson’s disorder, and it is the second most common neurodegenerative disorder, affecting approximately 1.2% of the world population over the age of 70. If no disease-modifying treatment is found, prevalence is predicted to reach 30,000 by 2020 and 1.24 million by 2030.
The global Parkinson’s Disease market was valued at 4.24 bn US$ in 2019 is expected to grow at 8.1% CAGR and reach US$ 8.3 bn value by 2026.
Even though the etiology of PD becomes clearer most new therapies solely treat PD symptoms. As such it is unlikely that they will be able to provide real improvement over existing drugs and will be able to replace them in patient care. Only groundbreaking therapy such as a neuroprotective candidate will be able to truly improve patient’s quality of life. to This is a great opportunity for OxAG to develop NeuroMETOX for PD and stop the progression of this debilitating disorder, which has such severe effects on the quality of life of patients and careers.
Oxford Antibiotic Group 