New data supporting targeting Trk receptors with ACD856 for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease presented at AAIC 2021

Stockholm, Sweden, July 29, 2021. AlzeCure Pharma AB (publ) (FN STO: ALZCUR), a pharmaceutical company that develops a broad portfolio of drug candidates for diseases affecting the central nervous system, with projects in both Alzheimer’s disease and pain, today announced that the company's presentation and poster regarding the clinical candidate drug ACD856 for Alzheimer's disease, presented at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) 2021 on July 26-30 in Denver, USA, are now available on the company's website.

The abstract, titled ACD856 – a novel positive allosteric modulator of Trk-signaling in clinical development for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease, was presented by Dr. Johan Sandin, Chief Scientific Officer at AlzeCure, and includes new study results demonstrating how ACD856 binds to neurotrophin receptors, so-called Trk receptors. The studies show that affects important neurotransmitters in areas of the brain that play an important role in cognition and memory. The end result is the potent effect that ACD856 exhibits on cognition and memory ability in a number of preclinical models. The presentation also demonstrates the good safety profile that the substance shows and contains results from the first clinical study that ACD856 underwent during the first half of 2020. Overall, the data indicate that the substance is well suited for further clinical development.

”With these data, we have shown how ACD856 affects both nerve cell function and cognitive ability via a unique biological mechanism that has a strong connection to cognitive function in humans,” commented Johan Sandin.

 
"The results presented show the solid scientific package that forms the rational for the current clinical phase I study with ACD856 and the possibilities to potentially treat several different disease states, not just Alzheimer's," said Martin Jönsson, CEO of AlzeCure Pharma.

The authors of the abstract include Johan Sandin, Chief Scientific Officer at AlzeCure, Dr. Pontus Forsell, Head of Discovery, Dr. Gunnar Nordvall, Head of Chemistry and Matthias Rother, Medical Program Director at AlzeCure.

The presentation, poster and the abstract are available on AlzeCure’s website: https://www.alzecurepharma.se/en/presentations-and-interviews/

For more information, please contact

Martin Jönsson, VD

Tel: +46(0)707 86 94 43

martin.jonsson@alzecurepharma.com

The information was submitted for publication, through the agency of the contact person set out above at 08.00 am CET on July 29, 2021.

About AlzeCure Pharma AB (publ)

AlzeCure^® is a Swedish pharmaceutical company that develops new innovative drug therapies for the treatment of severe diseases and conditions that affect the central nervous system, such as Alzheimer’s disease and pain – indications for which currently available treatment is extremely limited. The company is listed on Nasdaq First North Premier Growth Market and is developing several parallel drug candidates based on three research platforms: NeuroRestore^®, Alzstatin^® and Painless.

NeuroRestore consists of two symptomatic drug candidates where the unique mechanism of action allows multiple indications, including Alzheimer’s disease, as well as cognitive disorders associated with traumatic brain injury, sleep apnea and Parkinson’s disease. The Alzstatin platform focuses on developing disease-modifying and preventive drug candidates for early treatment of Alzheimer’s disease and comprises two candidates. Painless is the company’s research platform in the field of pain and contains two projects: ACD440, which is a drug candidate in the clinical development phase for the treatment of neuropathic pain, and TrkA-NAM, which targets severe pain in conditions such as osteoarthritis. AlzeCure^® aims to pursue its own projects through preclinical research and development to early clinical phase, and is continually working on business development to find suitable outlicensing solutions with other pharmaceutical companies.

FNCA Sweden AB, +46(0)8 528 00 399 info@fnca.se, is the company’s Certified Adviser. For more information, please visit www.alzecurepharma.se.

About NeuroRestore

NeuroRestore is a platform of symptom-relieving drug candidates for disease states in which cognitive ability is impaired, e.g. Alzheimer’s Disease, sleep disorders, traumatic brain injury and Parkinson’s disease. NeuroRestore stimulates several important signaling pathways in the brain, which among other things leads to improved cognition. In preclinical studies with NeuroRestore we have been able to show that our drug candidates enhance communication between the nerve cells and improve cognitive ability. NeuroRestore stimulates specific signaling pathways in the central nervous system known as neurotrophins, the most well-known being NGF (Nerve Growth Factor) and BDNF (Brain Derived Neurotrophic Factor). The levels of NGF and BDNF are disturbed in several disease states and the signaling is reduced. The impaired function impairs communication between the synapses, i.e. the contact surfaces of the nerve endings, as well as reducing the possibility of survival for the nerve cells, which gives rise to the cognitive impairments. Neurotrophins play a crucial role for the function of nerve cells, and a disturbed function of BDNF has a strong genetic link to impaired cognitive ability in several different diseases, such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, traumatic brain injury and sleep disorders.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting approximately 50 million people worldwide. Alzheimer’s disease is a lethal disorder that also has a large impact on both relatives and the society. Today, preventive and disease modifying treatments are missing. The main risk factors to develop Alzheimer’s are age and genetic causes. Even though the disease can start as early as between 40 and 65 years of age, it is most common after 65 years. Significant investments in Alzheimer research are being made because of the significant unmet medical need and the large cost of this disease for healthcare and society. The total global costs for dementia related diseases is estimated to about 1,000 billion USD globally. Given the lack of both effective symptomatic treatments and disease modifying treatments, the need for new effective therapies is acute. The few approved drugs on the market today have only a limited symptomatic effect and can produce dose limiting side effects. A disease modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease is estimated to reach more than $15 billion in annual sales. In Sweden, approximately 100,000 people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease with a healthcare cost of about SEK 63 billion yearly, which is more than for cancer and cardiovascular diseases combined.

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