ADDF Announces New Investments Supporting Promising Biomarker and Drug Discovery Programs

The Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) announced four new investments totaling $3.4 million in the first quarter of 2022 supporting innovative biomarker development and novel drug discovery programs for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. These programs range from digital technologies able to detect blood biomarkers with unprecedented levels of sensitivity to novel drug candidates aimed at reducing the deposit of toxic proteins and protecting and repairing brain circuitry in Alzheimer’s patients.

“The ADDF’s investments this quarter demonstrate our approach of targeting Alzheimer’s disease from every angle,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, ADDF Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer. “Our support of promising biomarker technologies will allow us to detect disease earlier and more reliably than ever, thereby giving us the ability to optimize clinical trials for drugs in all phases of development.”

BIOMARKERS

David Wilson, PhD, Quanterix Corporation
Clinical Implementation of Blood-Based Biomarkers for Alzheimer’s Disease: Clinical Validation, IVD Product Development, and Market Development
$2,300,000

Dr. Wilson’s team, in collaboration with Dr. Charlotte Teunissen of Amsterdam UMC, is using Quanterix’s Simoa technology to digitally measure biomarkers in the blood at lower levels than previously possible. This technology can count single molecules, lending it unprecedented sensitivity, which enables it to measure biomarkers that can otherwise be missed in the blood because they are “drowned out” by other, more abundant proteins. Simoa technology can also combine measurements for several biomarker proteins into a single test. This project will combine the most promising blood plasma biomarkers into a test for early Alzheimer’s detection.

Jennifer Goldsack, MChem, MA, MBA, OLY, Digital Medicine Society (DiMe)
Identifying a Patient-Specified Core Digital Measures Set in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias
$210,000

This project is a collaboration between Alzheimer’s experts from pharma, biotech, health tech, and non-profits to identify a set of standardized, digital clinical measures that can be used in the development of therapies for Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias. The measures will bring consensus, consistency, and effectiveness to drug development and clinical care. By demonstrating global meaningful aspects of health for Alzheimer’s patients, mapping technology capabilities to what matters most to patients, and building consensus around a priority set of core measures, the team will deliver the field’s defining digital clinical core measure set for Alzheimer’s and related dementias drug development.

DRUG DISCOVERY

Karen Ashe, MD, PhD, University of Minnesota
Repairing Neurotransmission in Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders by Targeting Caspase-2
$600,000

Dr. Ashe aims to repair synaptic dysfunction associated with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias by targeting the enzyme caspase-2. Caspase-2 promotes the breakdown of tau, weakening the transmission of neurons across the brain’s synapses. Dr. Ashe has discovered a caspase-2 inhibitor that blocks this breakdown has the potential not only to improve the ability to learn and remember new information, but also to recover lost memories by fortifying weakened synapses. Dr. Ashe’s team has found evidence of this mechanism acting in several forms of dementia, which is an increasingly important consideration since most patients have more than one underlying cause of their dementia.

Kenneth Kosik, MD, University of California, Santa Barbara
Discovery of Selective LRP1 Inhibitors to Prevent Tau Uptake and Spread
$300,000

Abnormal tau spread is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and some subtypes of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and is thought to contribute to disease progression and cell death. Recent evidence suggests that tau spread is enabled by a protein called LRP1, which makes it a promising target for drugs. Dr. Kosik is developing a drug to stop the abnormal uptake and spread of tau through the brain by targeting this protein. The ADDF will support Dr. Kosik and his team as they optimize the chemistry of the drug, assess its toxicity, and determine how the drug acts in a mouse model of disease. This is a new approach for targeting tau pathology for FTD.