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Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd. starts Phase 1 clinical trial of T-817MA for AD in the US |
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| July 20, 2005 | |||||
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July 20, 2005, Tokyo; Toyama Chemical Co., Ltd (President and CEO: Katsuhiko Nakano) announced that it has started Phase 1 clinical trials of T-817MA, its original compound designed for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), in the US. AD today It is estimated that there are 2.5 million AD patients in the US, 1.5 million in the EU and 700,000 in Japan, and is projected to become 1.5 times that by mid-2010’s. Currently available therapies for AD include widely used acetylcholine esterase inhibitors, which are known to show only symptomatic improvement by activating neurons, but fail to delay the disease progression. T-817MA: Development concept and profile Development concept: a therapeutic drug to prevent AD progression
In the AD animal model, induced by continuous intraventricular infusion of amyloid ß(Aß), T-817MA dosed for 2.5 weeks protected neurons against Aß-induced cell death and the animals kept their memory at the level of normal animals. In another experiment using severely demented animals, induced by long-term 8-week-Aß-infusion, T-817MA treated animals showed gradual recovery in their memory up to the level of normal animals. Interestingly, the memory recovery continued even after the 1-week drug cessation, which indicates the curative potential of this drug. Those results were presented at “The Society for Neuroscience Annual Meeting” in 2003 and 2004. Chemical structure :
Chemical name : 1-{3-[2-(1-benzothiophen-5-yl)ethoxy]propyl}-3-azetidinol maleate With the number of AD patients rapidly growing as the population ages, T-817MA could provide an innovative alternative to the currently marketed drugs, with its potential to not only prevent the progression of AD but also cure this tragic disease. As a next step, Toyama Chemical is planning to initiate Phase 2 clinical trials in the US in the fourth quarter of 2006. |
