The missing piece of the puzzle holding up a key Alzheimers drug

After decades of research, American scientists may finally be closing in on new ways to fight Alzheimer’s disease.But even the most promising discoveries can stall before they reach patients.The obstacle is often the enormous cost of the final clinical trials needed to win approval.Researchers call this funding gap the biotech “valley of death.”Yet, President Donald Trump could make a difference by providing federal funding to help promising treatments through the valley and across the finish line.For roughly three decades, Alzheimer’s research has concentrated heavily on amyloid plaques, the sticky protein deposits in the brain associated with the disease.That work has deepened our understanding and produced new medicines.But focusing on those deposits alone has not solved the problem.Researchers are now targeting inflammation, toxic proteins and the loss of synapses, the connections that allow brain cells to communicate.Those connections enable us to recognize a spouse, remember our children’s names and follow a conversation.Some people retain those abilities despite substantial biological signs associated with Alzheimer’s in their brains.Their ability to withstand damage offers an important clue: Strengthening that natural protection, known as synaptic resilience, may help preserve memory and cognition as the disease takes hold.I have a direct stake in this work: I co-founded PharmatrophiX, whose Alzheimer’s drug candidate, LM11A-31, met its safety and tolerability goals in Phase IIa testing, with encouraging findings suggesting it may help preserve synaptic function and resilience.The drug is being developed as a pill patients can take at home, without infusion visits or injections.Today’s amyloid-targeting treatments can cause brain swelling and bleeding, requiring repeated brain scans to monitor for potentially serious complications.Those side effects have not been observed with LM11A-31 in clinical testing to date.These approved therapies are ...