Alzheimer's disease (AD) affects about 5.5 million people in the United States and some 35.6 million people worldwide. Sadly, with the aging global population, those numbers are only expected to double by 2030 given the limited effective treatment options and lack of a cure for the dreaded neurological disease.
According to Statistics Canada, there are more than 560,000 Canadians living with some form of dementia carrying direct and indirect costs tallying $10.4 billion, with expectations for diagnoses to climb to 937,000 by 2031, putting more strain on an already stretched healthcare system.
With those stats in mind, it's easy to see why there is a great need to advance science to combat the growing problem of the complex disease. In laboratory studies in animal models of AD, ProMIS (TSX:PMN)(OTCQB:ARFXF) said Thursday that its amyloid-beta (Aß)-directed antibody PMN310 didn't bind to Aß plaque in and around blood vessels in AD brain samples.
This is important because binding of therapeutic antibodies to Aß deposits in brain tissue, in particular blood vessels, is believed to underlie the development of ARIA (amyloid-related imaging abnormalities, namely brain swelling and microhemorrhages) in treated AD patients.
ProMIS designed PMN310 to specifically target toxic prion-like Aß oligomers that are now believed to be a prime target for new therapies that can get to the root cause of AD.
Moreover, this quality being validated in the lab lends credence to the hypothesis that PMN310 may not be associated with side effects like brain swelling and microhemorrhages that limit dosing of other antibody treatments like aducanumab (BIIB037), a human monoclonal antibody therapy being developed by Biogen (NASDAQ:BIIB) shown to reduce amyloid plaques (a hallmark of AD) in an early-stage clinical trial.
If ProMIS can prove the improved safety profile in human trials, it means PMN310 could potentially yield a greater therapeutic benefit by being administered in higher doses than competing drug candidates. The latest data supports other preclinical work also showing PMN310 to selectively target toxic prion-like Aß oligomers, with no "off-target" binding to Aß plaque.
Investors are cheering the latest news, lifting shares of PMN 19.5% to a nearly two-month high at 24.5 cents with about two hours left in the trading day.
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