NeuroSearch reports progress with drug for Alzheimer's disease

Danish biopharmaceutical company NeuroSearch has reported encouragingresults from a Phase II trial of NS2330, a drug for Alzheimer's disease that enhances the effect of three neurotransmitters - acetylcholine, norepinephrine and dopamine - which are thought to be impaired in patients with the disease.

Current drugs to treat AD, such as Eisai/Pfizer's Aricept (donepezil) and Novartis' Exelon (rivastigmine), exert their effects mainly by boosting the activity of acetylcholine, but appear to have a limited beneficial effect, and only work in a proportion of those treated. Since the functions of all three neurotransmitters are impacted in AD, NeuroSearch hopes that NS2330 will have a greater therapeutic effect.

In the Phase II study, four doses of the drug were investigated and, at the two highest doses tested, NS2330 was associated with a significant improvement in a number of major components of cognitive function, including the ability to pay attention, store and retrieve information and the speed of access to items held in memory. Cognitive function was evaluated on day 26 and day 42 of the 32-patient study, which enrolled patients with mild AD. The drug was well-tolerated at all four doses tested, and the effects of cognitive function seemed to be dose-dependent and long-lasting, said Keith Wesnes of Cognitive Drug Research, the contract research company which conducted the study for NeuroSearch.