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Amgen Researchers Identify Key Alzheimer's Protein (Update1)
Washington, Oct. 21 (Bloomberg) -- Researchers at Amgen Inc., the world's largest biotechnology company, have identified a molecule thought to play an important role in the progression of Alzheimer's disease, according to a new study.
In Alzheimer's disease, normal proteins in the brain are broken down into dangerous plaques called beta-amyloids. Over time, those plaques build up, which researchers believe leads to the neurological breakdown of Alzheimer's.
The Amgen team found one of the enzymes -- dubbed BACE -- that causes the plaques to form, giving scientists a new target in designing drugs to stop the disease. ''This tells us something about how to best develop inhibitors of this enzyme,'' said Martin Citron, the Amgen scientists who led the research. ''The challenge is to design an inhibitor that is non-toxic and ... is therapeutically useful.''
Citron said it would be years before the research would yield a drug for human use.
Though the role of the BACE enzyme has long been understood, researchers hadn't previously been able to identify it.
Still, the study, to be published tomorrow in the journal Science, said more work needs to be done before therapies become available.
The authors wrote that additional study is required to see if Alzheimer's patients use BACE differently and to see if some people have BACE-related genes that may increase or decrease their risk of the disease.
Researchers are still unsure about the cause of Alzheimer's disease, a degenerative neurological disease that strikes 4 million Americans.
Much research, including the Amgen study, has centered around a theory known as the ''amyloid hypothesis'' that holds that eliminating the protein plaques that build up in the brains of patients with Alzheimer's will cure the disease.
Finding a compound that inhibits the formation of those plaques and improves the neurological functioning of Alzheimer's patients would serve as important evidence for the amyloid hypothesis, Citron said.
Also in development is an Elan Corp. vaccine that trains the immune system to clear the protein plaques out of the brain.
Drugs now on the market, including Pfizer Inc. and Eisai Co.'s Aricept and Warner-Lambert Co.'s Cognex, only treat the symptoms of the disease.
Amgen shares fell 6 to close at 80 1/8 on concerns that the Thousand Oaks, California-based company will be unable to sustain its earnings growth.
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