OLIGOMERIX Awarded NIH Grant to Develop Drug Discovery Technology for Alzheimer’s Disease

OLIGOMERIX, Inc. has announced the receipt of a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant for $233,598 from the National Institute on Aging, National Institutes of Health (NIH), to develop high throughput technology for drug discovery for Alzheimer's disease.

This technology targets Tau OLIGOMERS, small soluble aggregates of tau protein that contribute to the pathology of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Antibodies against Tau OLIGOMERS developed in this program will be used to select compounds inhibiting the accumulation of Tau OLIGOMERS for drug development and as biomarkers for drug efficacy during disease progression. The antibodies are being developed in collaboration with Dr. Michael Sierks (Arizona State University).

There is a large and rapidly growing unmet need for disease modifying drugs for Alzheimer’s disease. There are 18 million cases of AD worldwide; by 2025 this number is expected to increase to 34 million.

Direct costs in US for AD exceeded $150 billion in 2005. Presently, only 5 mildly effective AD symptom-treating drugs exist but none that treat the underlying neurodegenerative processes.

James Moe, President and CEO of OLIGOMERIX, Inc., stated, "Our proprietary Tau OLIGOMER target is being used to discover novel disease-modifying drugs that can halt or reverse the inexorable loss of neurons that is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases.”