South Florida Uni begins £875,000 dementia drug research programme
pharmafile | March 1, 2016 | News story | Manufacturing and Production, Research and Development | Alzheimer's
Funding from a consortium worth £875,000 pounds has helped kick start a new dementia drug research program at the University of South Florida, Alzheimer’s Research UK said.
The UK-based charity said the investment comes as part of the £4 million Dementia Consortium – a global partnership between Alzheimer’s Research UK, MRC Technology and the pharmaceutical companies Abbvie, Astex, Eisai and Eli Lilly. This is the first project undertaken by the Consortium in collaboration with a US-based university.
Dr David Morgan says: “We’ve been exploring the role of fractalkine in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease for many years now, highlighting a neuroprotective role for the protein. Thanks to funding from the Dementia Consortium, we are now able to shift our focus from pathway characterisation to drug development. We’re particularly excited that this approach could have an impact across a number of different neurodegenerative diseases and look forward to coupling our disease knowledge with drug discovery experts in the UK, to help accelerate progress towards treatments.”
The link between the immune system and neurodegeneration is the focus of intense investigation and a number of drug discovery efforts aimed at reducing inflammation have got underway recently. The project will explore the role of immune system regulator, fractalkine, in neurodegeneration.
Dr Simon Ridley, director of research at Alzheimer’s Research UK, comments: “Dementia is our greatest medical challenge, with 46 million people worldwide living with the condition. The Dementia Consortium is one of a range of initiatives by Alzheimer’s Research UK to accelerate the ‘bench to bedside’ journey, ensuring that academic insights are translated into the clinic as rapidly as possible. The high attrition rate in drug discovery means we must invest heavily in promising early stage development projects and the Dementia Consortium provides a unique vehicle for this investment, uniting expertise across the academic, technology transfer and pharmaceutical sectors.”
Anjali Shukla
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