Inside This Issue: Alzheimer's Disease
Top News Alerts: Product Updates, Deals & Financings
Featured Topic: Highlights from International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease 2008
Featured Company: Medivation (MDVN)
Subscribe now to access over 30 articles covering developments in drugs, devices and diagnostics for the brain and nervous system.
Market Highlights: Medivation Scores; Elan, Vanda and Titan Tumble
Medivation (MDVN), our featured company in this issue, was the top gainer this month (see feature, page 11). The company showed data on mechanism of action as well as 18 month data on Dimebon at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s Disease, ICAD 2008, in Chicago. Other highlights from the conference including new results from Elan/Wyeth, Cytos/Novartis, GSK, Eli Lilly and TauRx and insider perspectives on new treatments in development are detailed throughout this issue. Neurogen (NRGN) plummeted in July after suspending a Phase II/III trial in chronic insomnia in which initial dosing caused grogginess and memory loss (see story, page 5). Titan (TTP) was crushed after their cell therapy for Parkinson’s disease Spheramine failed to show efficacy in a Phase IIb (see story, page 3). Titan also took a hit for its interest in Vanda’s (VNDA) anti-psychotic iloperidone, which received a not approvable letter requiring a new trial with a comparison to Zyprexa (see story, page 6)...
Emerging Strategies in Alzheimer's Disease
In November 1906, German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer gave a lecture at the 37th Conference of South-West German Psychiatrists in Tuebingen, where he described "a peculiar disease of the cerebral cortex." The disease affected a woman, Auguste Deter, 51 years of age, and caused memory loss, aphasia, disorientation, and an "amnesic writing disorder." The 32 page file on Auguste Deter, including hand-writing samples, photographs, microscopic slides, and drawings of neurofibrillary tangles by Alzheimer was recently rediscovered in the archives at the University of Frankfurt. Although the cause of AD remains unknown, there is no shortage of hypotheses and theories regarding the origin and progression of the disease, each with their own strong proponents and naysayers. This article outlines evidence for the various theories and promising treatments in development in light of recent scientific and clinical results...
Medivation Closes in on a First in Class Drug
After selling his previous company in 2001, David Hung, MD, CEO of Medivation (MDVN) was looking for something to do. “I spent 18 months combing world for technologies. Serendipitously, I found out about Dimebon,” says Hung. The drug was on the market in Russia as an antihistamine for over 20 years and had preclinical activity in animal models of neurodegenerative disease. Founded in 2003, Medivation already has three programs in late stage clinical trials, covering three large unmet medical needs. Medivation is still small, but it is not a virtual company. "There are 40 people in the office, doing hands-on work every day. We do use CRO's but we are very compulsive about keeping control over the design of our programs," says Hung...
Companies Covered In This Issue Include: Biogen Idec, Medavante, CoLucid, Bayhill Therapeutics, Theragenics, Neurogen, Map Pharmaceuticals, NeuroDiscovery, Sound Pharmaceuticals, Genaera, Northstar Neuroscience, Neuropharma AS, CoMentis, Targacept, Durect, Adolor, Evotec, BrainStorm Cell Therapeutics, Titan, Teva Pharmaceuticals, Antisense Therapeutics, Roche, Abbott, Epix, Memory, GlaxoSmithKline, Avera, Synosia, Ceregene, NsGene, Cortex, Allon Therapeutics, Merck, Amgen, Synosia, Cara Therapeutics, Probiodrug, NuPathe, Sierra Neuropharmaceuticals, CVRx, Vanda, Actelion, Collegium, NeuroHealing, Genentech, Peptimmune, Greatbatch, Integrated Sensing Technologies, Orexigen, UCB
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