Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. a biopharmaceutical company with an internal pre-clinical and clinical-stage pipeline and licenses with major pharmaceutical companies covering products in late-stage clinical trials, announced that it has received a new patent from the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in relation to the company's Recall-Vaxtm technology platform.
Patents for Recall-Vaxtm have been issued in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, and corresponding patent applications are pending in Canada, China, Japan and Israel. Recall-Vaxtm is a method to immunize people to produce highly specific natural antibodies against the beta amyloid (Aß) protein before it causes irreversible damage by accumulating in the brains of Alzheimer's patients.
The vaccine has the potential to delay onset or prevent Alzheimer's disease in individuals susceptible by age, genetic or other risk factor. The approach can be applied to additional therapeutic targets associated with Alzheimer's and other neurodegenerative conditions.
Professor Benjamin Chain, Department of Immunology, UCL School of Life and Medical Sciences, London, UK, is the inventor of Recall-Vaxtm. Professor Chain, brother of Dr Daniel Chain, Intellect's chairman and chief executive officer, is a member of the company's scientific advisory board.
Dr Daniel Chain commented: “This new patent from the USPTO is yet another important milestone for the company and is indicative of the type of ground breaking research we do that is aimed at discovering and developing drugs that can fundamentally transform the way Alzheimer's disease is treated and ultimately prevent the onset of the disease. Intellect has two immunotherapy approaches: The more advanced of the two is the Antisenilin platform, which uses recombinant monoclonal antibodies as highly specific drugs to prevent the accumulation of soluble Aß in the brains of Alzheimer's patients. The Antisenilin technology underlies products under development by major pharmaceutical companies, such as Ponezumab in phase II and Bapineuzumab in phase III clinical trials, respectively. Recall-Vaxtm pinpoints the same unique molecular signatures at the ends of Aß to reproduce the same type of specificity that can be obtained using Antisenilin monoclonal antibodies. However, instead of administering antibodies to patients, Recall-Vaxtm involves injecting a small piece of Aß coupled to an innocuous bacterial protein with the goal of allowing the patient's immune system to generate antibodies that uniquely bind Aß. A vaccine of this nature, which is analogous to a flu shot, could be viewed as the ultimate quest in Alzheimer's research. We look forward to developing drug candidates based on Recall-Vaxtm technology with the aim of ultimately testing the vaccine in human clinical trials.”
Alzheimer's disease, the most common form of dementia, is characterized by progressive loss of memory and cognition, ultimately leading to complete debilitation and death. A hallmark feature of Alzheimer's pathology is the presence of insoluble protein deposits, known as amyloid beta, on the surface of nerve cells, which results from the accumulation of soluble neurotoxic amyloid beta in the brain.
The effects of the disease are devastating to patients as well as their caregivers, with significant associated health care costs. It is estimated that there are more than five million Americans and about 30 million people worldwide suffering from Alzheimer's disease, with the number expected to increase dramatically as the global population ages.
Currently-marketed drugs transiently affect some symptoms of the disease, but there are no drugs on the market today that slow or arrest the progression of the disease. In the United States, Medicare spending on Alzheimer's disease is estimated to total $160 billion this year.
Intellect Neurosciences, Inc. is engaged in the discovery and development of disease-modifying therapeutic agents for the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer's disease and other disorders.