A multidisciplinary team of scientists led by Kurt Brunden, Ph.D., at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine, and Carlo Ballatore, Ph.
D., at University of California San Diego, has been awarded a $6.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) to prepare a potential disease-modifying Alzheimer's treatment for future clinical trials.
In a recently published study about the new compound, called CNDR-51997, the team found it was effective in restoring brain health in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. CNDR-51997 was identified through a joint drug discovery program at Penn and UC San Diego that was supported by grants from the NIA. The new grant will help the researchers demonstrate the drug's safety in formal studies required by the U.
S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) prior to the initiation of human testing. By the end of the three-year grant period, the researchers hope to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the FDA that, if approved, would allow for Phase 1 clinical studies.
Alzheimer's disease is characterized by abnormal deposits of two types of protein in the brain: amyloid beta (Aβ) and tau. The only currently available disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer's, lecanemab (LeqembiTM) and donanemab (KisunlaTM), target Aβ deposits in the brain. Notably, there are currently no approved therapies that target pathological tau.
In mice, the researchers found that CNDR-51997 was able to reduce both Aβ plaques and.