Lilly signs Lou Gehrig’s disease deal
pharmafile | November 21, 2013 | News story | Research and Development, Sales and Marketing | als, hill, lilly, lou gehrig
Eli Lilly & Company has signed a deal with US charity Project A.L.S. to find new treatments for the debilitating brain disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
Also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, the neurodegenerative condition affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord, with patients finding themselves unable to control muscle movement and even becoming totally paralysed.
In a bid to speed up the discovery of potential therapies, Project A.L.S. will have access to molecules which are being developed and studied pre-clinically by Lilly researchers for treating cancer.
Project A.L.S. scientists will assess their potential in the treatment of ALS in a series of early stage studies.
“Chronic inflammation has long been implicated in ALS disease progression, but recent advances in areas like genomics have now made it possible to identify specific inflammatory targets for ALS drug development,” said Professor Tom Maniatis, an academic at Columbia University.
He and a Columbia colleague, Professor Thomas Jessell, have found new data uncovering the part played by several inflammatory signalling pathways in ALS disease progression.
The key point in terms of the Lilly agreement is that several of these pathways are also associated with cancer – hence the interest in the manufacturer’s oncology pipeline.
The pipeline includes several pre-clinical molecules targeting the pathways identified by Maniatis and Jessell, and Project A.L.S. will examine some of these to see if they show any activity between ALS and inflammation.
“The evidence demonstrating a potential role for these cancer signalling pathways in the progression of ALS is compelling,” said Greg Plowman, vice president of oncology research at Lilly.
“Lilly will provide well-characterised and selective molecules that we hope will help accelerate the development of medicines for ALS,” he added.
Valerie Estess, director of research for Project A.L.S said: “The hope is that this collaboration will eventually provide meaningful new treatment options for ALS patients.”
Other companies are looking at ALS, including Cytokinetics, whose Phase II candidate tirasemtiv is being developed for the disease and other neuromuscular disorders.
Adam Hill
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