On January 4, 2011, the National Alzheimer’s Project Act was signed into law by President Obama after having been passed unanimously in both the Senate and House of Representatives. This is a major victory for the Alzheimer’s Association and its advocates – as well as for the nation. The key now is to ensure this act is implemented. Intellect Neurosciences is on the right track.
Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. (OTCBB:ILNS), a biopharmaceutical company engaged in the discovery and development of disease-modifying therapeutic agents for the treatment of Alzheimer’s and other neurological diseases has filed two United States, and one international patent application regarding passive and active immunotherapy approaches targeting abnormal forms of tau protein that lead to death of nerve cells in Alzheimer’s disease.
“These new patent filings continue to demonstrate our leadership in translational Alzheimer’s research and ongoing commitment to develop improved next-generation drug products,” said Dr. Daniel G. Chain, Intellect’s chairman & CEO. “We are encouraged by the results of two recent studies conducted by independent groups from Columbia University and Harvard Medical School suggesting that tau may cause Alzheimer’s disease to spread through the brain. Their findings indicate that an antibody approach may halt that spread, which supports our strategy of a combined vaccine against beta amyloid and delta tau that may potentially eliminate the disease.”
Intellect Neuroscience is investigating the combination of its new technology for which it has filed the recent patents with its RECALL-VAX active vaccine platform, which was originally developed to target neoepitopes in amyloid beta. The company has manufactured a combination test vaccine from its RECALL-VAX platform, RV03, to target both beta amyloid and delta tau, which are increasingly understood to act in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease. The company is embarking on a series of preclinical studies with RV03, using brain imaging and other translational tools to test both safety and efficacy to facilitate design of future clinical trials.
The company is currently developing products based on three platform technologies: ANTISENILIN® is Intellect’s Alzheimer’s beta amyloid monoclonal antibody platform technology, which underlies a product in Phase 3 clinical trials licensed to major pharmaceutical companies. ANTISENILIN also underlies IN-N01, which is being developed by the company as an antibody dug conjugate (ADC). IN-N01-OX2 is the first candidate to emerge from the company’s CONJUMAB-A platform technology, that has poten neuroprotective properties both as an antioxidant and inhibitor of protein aggregation. RECALL-VAX is a therapeutic vaccine technology that underlies three preclinical drug candidates, RV01 and RV02, which target beta amyloid and delta tau protein, respectively, and RV03 which is a combination of the two.
The company recently licensed OX1, a small molecule multimodal antioxidant, to ViroPharma, Inc. for Friedreich’s Ataxia and other neurodegenerative diseases.
Intellect Neurosciences recently presented at the 5th annual OneMedForum San Francisco 2012 and at 2012 BIO Asia International Partnering Conference.