LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Neurocrine Biosciences Inc Monday unveiled
advances that may help treat stroke patients as well as those with Alzheimer's
disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.
In a paper to be published in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences Neurocrine, scientists said they had discovered a
compound that could unlock a protein in the brain that could treat neural
diseases, head trauma, osteoporosis, spinal injury and other ailments.
The study focused on "insulin-like growth factors" (IGFs) which are essential
for normal growth and development and protect brain cells from injury. IGFs
are naturally produced in the body but are attached to receptors that render
then inactive.
Scientists in recent years have focused on increasing the level of IGFs in
patients as a potential treatment for neural disorders, such as strokes, which do
not have effective therapies.
To date scientists have been unable to get IGFs past the blood- brain barrier
since they are such large protein molecules.
San Diego-based Neorocrine's approach is to develop a drug that could be
taken orally to separate IGFs already present in the brain from the receptors,
thereby unlocking the therapeutic effect of the IGFs.
"People have wanted to use (IGFs) for these indications but they haven't been
able to because you can't deliver it," Neurocrine President Gary Lyons said in
an interview.
"The significance of this work is we (will) have a pill that will increase these
growth factors in the brain to slow or prevent, and even repair, nerve cell death
for the first time for treatment in these kinds of diseases."
Lyons said his company will now face the long process of clinical trials in order
to get U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration approval for the drug. He said it
could take up to two years, and possibly longer, before the drug would be
available to patients.
The company tested the compound on laboratory rats which had suffered
strokes. The study slowed, or prevented, neuron cell death by up to 50 percent
in rats compared with rats that were not treated.
Since human brain cells take longer to die than rat brains cells the company
hopes the effects of the treatment will be even more pronounced in humans.
Over the long-term Lyons said increasing IGFs had regenerative effects on
brain cells, which may offer potential treatment for patients with Alzheimer's,
Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and spinal injury.
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Mark Egan, Neurocrine unlocks possible stroke treatment., Reuters,
02-16-1998. |
