Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation announced that significant new evidence linking the brain protein detected by the company's AlzheimAlert test to the Alzheimer's disease process has been published in the latest issue of Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences. The study by a research team at Brown Medical School led by Dr Suzanne de la Monte found that the AlzheimAlert brain protein (NTP or neural thread protein) is physically associated with important structural brain cell proteins known to accumulate abnormally in Alzheimer's disease.
NTP has been shown to co-localize with some of the key abnormal cytoskeletal neuronal changes in AD. The new studies reported by the Brown Medical School researchers in the Cellular and Molecular Life Sciences article showed that NTP was abundantly distributed in these key cytoskeletal fractions, which emphasizes the important role NTP plays in the neurodegeneration and the "tangles" in the brain cells in AD.
The company's AlzheimAlert product is intended to aid physicians in the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease. The AlzheimAlert test measures levels of NTP in the urine of patients, and numerous published studies have shown that elevated levels of urinary NTP are present in Alzheimer's disease. Nymox currently offers AlzheimAlert through its CLIA-certified clinical reference laboratory in Maywood, New Jersey at a price of $295.
Nymox recently announced that the company would file a PMA (Premarket Approval application) with the FDA for the NTP urine test. The clinical studies and documentation have been completed, and the company expects to file the application in the near future.
Dr Michael Munzar, medical director of Nymox, said, "This study provides further evidence validating the science underlying our AlzheimAlert technology and showing the link between elevated levels of NTP and the destruction caused by Alzheimer's disease in the human brain. It also underlines the tremendous potential of our programme to develop new therapeutics for Alzheimer's disease by blocking the harmful effects of NTP."