Treeway announces first patient enrolled in the phase 2a asure clinical trial

Treeway, in collaboration with the Alzheimer Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF), announced today the successful enrollment of the first patient in the Alzheimer’s Disease Study Using Oral Edaravone (ASURE), Phase 2a clinical trial. The trial will include 60 patients in different European countries, and will evaluate the safety, pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics of oral edaravone in Alzheimer’s patients. This is the first clinical study that aims to investigate the effect of oral edaravone, a novel multimodal treatment for early onset of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD).

“We are thrilled to venture into a clinical phase for Alzheimer’s Disease, building on our experience in neurodegenerative disease and inspired by patients. Our team is passionately working on advancing oral edaravone as a potential treatment for AD,” said Inez de Greef, Chief Executive Officer at Treeway. AD is a complex disease where multiple disease pathways occur in parallel. Despite recent positive results in the field, there is still a high need to counter AD progression in multiple disease domains. Edaravone is a free radical scavenger and acts by reducing oxidative stress, which plays a pivotal role in the development and progression of the disease. Moreover, edaravone has been shown to modulate mitochondrial dysfunction and pathological neuroimmune processes in AD animal
models.

According to Dr. Jort Vijverberg, Neurologist and Principal Investigator of the trial: “We are confident that this study will provide us with important information about Alzheimer’s disease as we will be monitoring multiple important pathophysiological mechanisms throughout the study.” The innovative trial design, which includes a panel of biomarkers, novel EEG markers and cognitive functioning outcomes, will investigate the potential of oral edaravone in treating AD. Ronald van der Geest, Treeway’s Chief Development Officer added: “We are excited to be enabled by ADDF to extent our activities to Alzheimer’s and to collaborate with one of the top centers in the world. With the help of the Amsterdam team, we believe we have incorporated the latest insights in AD trial design into our study.”

Back in 2014, Treeway studied the use of the oral drug a public-private partnership with the ALS Center of the University Medical Center in Utrecht (UMCU) and Leiden Academic Center for Drug Research (LACDR). This project was one of the first public-private projects funded by Top Sector LSH via the PPP Allowance.

Source: HollandBIO