BrainBlog

Discussions about Targretin (bexarotene): From The Wall Street Journal : Alzheimer's Families Clamor for Drug By Shirley S. Wang 11 February 2012 Read the article From the In The Pipeline blog: Bexarotene for Alzheimer's 13 February 2012 Read the blog posting

From Drug Discovery & Development : Positive Study Results for Schizophrenia Drug Drug Discovery & Development December 05, 2011 "EnVivo Pharmaceuticals announced the analysis of a completed Phase 2b clinical trial of EVP-6124, a novel, orally bioavailable nicotinic alpha-7 agonist, in schizophrenia." Read the full report

A report from Fierce BioTech : Third Rock Ventures Launches SAGE Therapeutics to Address CNS Disorders with Critical Unmet Needs Posted October 18, 2011 [snippet] "Third Rock Ventures, LLC today announced the formation of SAGE Therapeutics. The company was launched with a $35 million Series A financing. SAGE's efforts focus on advancing a broad pipeline of new, critically needed treatments for some of the most disabling central nervous system (CNS) disorders such as schizophrenia, depression, pain and traumatic brain injury (TBI). SAGE Therapeutics is founded on a proprietary Positive and Negative Allosteric Modulator (PANAM) chemistry platform that will enable the rapid development of a novel class of allosteric receptor modulators. Steven Paul, M.D., the former executive vice president for science and technology and president of Lilly Research Laboratories and a former scientific director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and Douglas Covey, Ph.D., professor o...

Investors ready to craft new biotechs out of Pfizer's discards February 9, 2011 — 8:47am ET By John Carroll FierceBiotech Read the article

From The Guardian : Cuts disastrous for brain science research, academics warn At least 30 neuroscience units to go under cuts proposed by Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council Ian Sample guardian.co.uk Thursday 10 February 2011 21.14 GMT [snip] "The closure of drug company research facilities and "draconian" funding cuts will have a disastrous impact on brain science in Britain, senior academics have warned. "At least 30 neuroscience research groups are expected to fold under cuts proposed by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), adding to jobs already lost after big pharmaceutical companies shut research programmes or moved them abroad." [snip] Read the full article

From The New York Times : F.D.A. Sees Promise in Alzheimer’s Imaging Drug By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: January 20, 2011 Filed at 5:40 p.m. EST WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal panel of medical experts said Thursday a first-of-a-kind imaging chemical designed to help screen for Alzheimer's disease could be useful pending additional study and training for physicians. The Food and Drug Administration panel of advisers voted 16-0 in favor of approval for Eli Lilly's Amyvid on the condition that the company demonstrates the images can be consistently interpreted by physicians who have received training in reading the scans. Without those requirements the panel voted 13-3 against approval for the injection in an earlier vote. The FDA is not required to follow the panel's advice, though it often does. Read the full report

From The New York Times : Tests Show Promise for Early Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s By GINA KOLATA The New York Times Published: January 18, 2011 "Researchers report major advances on two vexing questions about Alzheimer’s: How do you know if someone who is demented has it? And how can you screen the general population for risk?" Read the full article. The report includes discussion about this week's forthcoming FDA Advisory Committee discussion about Avid Radiopharmaceuticals product.

"The Drug Deadlock" Nature 11 November 2010 Download the article

From FierceBiotech , an interesting report: Full article: Top 10 Phase III Failures of 2010

A very readable piece from Gina Kolata of the New York Times: Doubt on Tactic in Alzheimer’s Battle By GINA KOLATA The New York Times Published: August 18, 2010 "The failure of a promising Alzheimer’s drug highlights the gap between diagnosis and treatment." Read the full article

From The New York Times : Hopes for Alzheimer’s Drug Are Dashed By ANDREW POLLACK Published: March 4, 2010 "The drug, called Dimebon, failed in its first late-stage clinical trial, dealing a blow to patients with Alzheimer’s and the companies developing the treatment, Medivation and Pfizer." Read the full article

A press release from earlier today by Pfizer: Pfizer And Medivation Announce Results From Two Phase 3 Studies In Dimebon (latrepirdine) Alzheimer’s Disease Clinical Development Program [snip] "About the CONNECTION Study "CONNECTION is a Phase 3, multi-national, double-blind, placebo-controlled safety and efficacy trial involving 598 patients with mild-to-moderate AD at 63 sites in North America, Europe, and South America. Patients had a mean age of 74.4 years and a mean score of 17.7 on the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) upon entry into the study. More than 40 percent of the patients enrolled were in the United States. In the study, patients were randomized to one of three treatment groups, receiving dimebon 20 mg three times a day (TID), dimebon 5 mg TID, or placebo TID for six months. The 5 mg arm was included in the study to help define the effective dose range for dimebon treatment. "No statistically significant improvements for the 20 mg TID group relative to ...

From Fierce Biotech : UCSF enters drug discovery agreement with Genentech Posted February 19, 2010 "The University of California, San Francisco has signed a partnership agreement with Genentech, Inc., a wholly owned member of the Roche Group, to discover and develop drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases. "Through the agreement, Genentech will provide funding and its research acumen in neuroscience and will collaborate with UCSF to identify small molecules." Read the full article

From FierceBiotech : GSK launches new specialist unit to research and develop medicines for rare diseases Issued: Thursday 4 February 2010, London UK Read the full article

An Associated Press report this evening outlines changes at a number of Wyeth and Pfizer research facilities: Read article

From The New York Times : Biotech Tries to Shrug Off Setbacks By JAMES FLANIGAN Published: September 17, 2009 "While some investors are pulling back, life sciences companies continue to innovate, and hope the capital to expand will come." Read the piece

A report from BusinessWeek from 27 August 2009: Drug, Biotech Research Spending Hangs Tough Overall U.S. corporate R&D spending is down 4% since the end of 2007, but some companies have chosen to buck the trend By Emily Thornton and Frederick Jespersen [snip] Corporate America's research spending shrank 4% overall, or $1.9 billion, from the fourth quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of this year, according to data compiled by Capital IQ on 961 U.S. companies. But many health-care companies have boosted their research outlays. BusinessWeek sought out 25 companies that most aggressively increased their research budgets during the first six months of 2009. Thirteen members of the group, which collectively boosted its spending by $2 billion, were pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Only eight were high-tech outfits, such as Apple (AAPL) and Microsoft (MSFT). [snip] Read the full article

The September 2009 issue of Wired has a nifty little article on the impact of placebo effects on pharmaceutical clinical trials and pharma company decision making: "Real. Fake. Both Can Cure Depression." by Steve Silberman. === Addendum on 28th August: As you will see from the comments, this piece is available on Wired magazine's website. You can access it here ===