Verge Genomics Inc. has entered a second big AI deal with a large drug company. Privately held Verge will receive up to $42 million, including up-front, equity and near-term payments from Alexion, Astrazeneca Rare Disease, to identify multiple targets for rare neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases. The deal could top out at $840 million. There also is potential for downstream royalties.
With the spotlight at this week’s Alzheimer’s Association International conference firmly fixed on the first approved therapies, advances in diagnosing the neurodegenerative disease - on which effective use of new drugs will hang - attracted less attention. However, hand-in-hand with the development of anti-amyloid drugs, development of blood-based biomarkers has made significant progress and they now have the potential to form the basis of easy to access and low cost tests.
Nodthera Ltd. claims to be first to demonstrate it is possible to modulate the NLRP3 inflammasome in the brain, after showing there were reductions in inflammatory and disease-specific biomarkers in blood and cerebrospinal fluid after seven days of daily administration of its lead product, NT-0796, an oral NLRP3 inhibitor.
Nido Biosciences Inc. emerged from stealth by unveiling $109 million in series A and B equity funding and a clinical-stage program in spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy.
Replacing the damaged cell population in neurodegenerative diseases provides a treatment approach. However, interventions that protect host cells could offer new treatment possibilities for neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
A new study has uncovered a potential link between RNA regulation and the development of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Parkinson’s disease and dementia. This work, conducted by researchers at the University of Nottingham, used a combination of microscopy and machine learning techniques to examine the role of N6-methyladenosine modification of RNA (m6A) in the human brain.
Newco Teitur Trophics ApS has raised €28 million (US$30.1 million) in a series A with which it will lay out a new route to targeting sortilin in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. The company is targeting the sortilin-related Vps10p domain containing receptor, which plays a role in regulating a number of pathways involved in the control of neuronal viability and function.
