LEXINGTON, Mass., January 16, 2014 – Alzheon, Inc., a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on brain health, memory and aging, today announced that it has been nominated for The Most Promising Company competition at the Personalized Medicine World Conference 2014. Alzheon is developing the first personalized drug treatment for Alzheimer’s with its lead program ALZ-801. Alzheon was selected based on the ability of the company to define the next generation of personalized medicine with its technology.
Alzheon is advancing ALZ-801 into a pivotal Phase 2/3 clinical study in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, guided by the existing clinical data and subpopulation analyses in more than 2,000 Alzheimer’s patients from Phase 3 studies with the parent molecule tramiprosate. Genetically, the ε4 allele of the apolipoprotein E (ApoE) gene is the strongest risk factor for patients with late-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Analysis of the data from the tramiprosate Phase 3 study showed strong efficacy in cognition and function in 599 patients with the ε4 allele of the ApoE. Alzheon has developed a streamlined clinical program to prospectively evaluate ALZ-801 in ApoE4 positive subjects. The confirmatory pivotal Phase 2/3 study in ApoE4 positive patients will be initiated in early 2015.
The award will be decided on a vote by a panel of Pharma executives, healthcare professionals and venture capitalists combined with votes from delegates attending the Personalized Medicine World Conference (PMWC). PMWC brings together the foremost leaders in personalized medicine from all aspects of business, government, healthcaredelivery and research to advance the field of personalized medicine.
“We are honored to be nominated by industry leaders for The Most Promising Company competition at this year’s PMWC conference. This recognition underscores what we have already achieved and what we are working towards – making a difference in the lives of patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” said Martin Tolar, MD, PhD, Founder, President and CEO of Alzheon. “Alzheimer’s is a major medical, economical and social challenge of our time and we look forward to applying a personalized medicine approach to developing innovative therapeutics for Alzheimer’s disease, so that drugs can be targeted to specific patient populations who are most likely to benefit from the treatment.”
To qualify for The Most Promising Company award at PMWC, a company must be privatelyheld and working in the areas of therapeutics, diagnostics or platform and information technologies. Selection is based on how a company’s innovation is disruptive to current standard-of-care, both in cost and effectiveness; strength of team and ability to execute; barriers to competition; and strength of intellectual property and expected financial returns for investors.
About Alzheon
Alzheon, Inc., is a clinical-stage biotechnology company focused on brain health, memory and aging, developing innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative disorders. Alzheon pursues drug development programs that have previously been tested in extensive efficacy studies in Alzheimer’s disease patients and where new insights can be applied. Based on a drug development platform that yields diverse and novel compounds, the company is building a pipeline of innovative drugs to target the underlying pathogenesis of neurodegeneration in order to improve the symptoms and slow the progression of these devastating diseases. Our lead product candidate, ALZ-801, is a first-inclass small molecule inhibitor of amyloid aggregation and neurotoxicity, and is advancing into a confirmatory pivotal Phase 2/3 study for certain patient populations with Alzheimer’s disease or at risk for the disease. Alzheon has world-leading capabilities in drug development for Alzheimer’s and related diseases, and we apply state-of-the-art clinical development approaches to improve the likelihood of success with product candidates in our pipeline as well as additional therapeutic assets from in-licensing.
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