Medtronic ($MDT) thinks it has the technology needed to give a drug developer a real edge in the frustrating effort to develop an effective new treatment for Alzheimer's. The medical device company's CNS Drug Delivery chief Lisa Shafer told Bloomberg that Medtronic's approach can give pharma companies the inside track on getting their treatments through the blood-brain barrier, offering a straight shot at the beta amyloid buildup that many have targeted.
In fact, Medtronic also has a preclinical Alzheimer's therapy in play as well. But Shafer says that the preferred approach will be to partner with a company skilled in drug development. And the same technology can be used to target tau--another Alzheimer's target--and add anti-inflammatories to the treatment regimen.
"We have proof of concept and we're looking for partners," Shafer told Bloomberg. "We're pushing into the fluid surrounding the brain, which bathes all the brain tissue, bypassing the blood-brain barrier."
Any edge in Alzheimer's R&D would likely win a close inspection. As FierceBiotech Executive Editor Ryan McBride recently reported, more than 100 would-be Alzheimer's treatments have failed in the clinic, with only a handful of largely ineffective therapies making their way to the market. Bapineuzumab, a new drug from J&J ($JNJ) and Pfizer ($PFE), was recently shelved after failing in Phase III. And Eli Lilly's ($LLY) second big effort to target the disease--solanezumab--also failed both primary endpoints in a late-stage test.
Investigators now are largely turning to test new drugs on patients with a very early stage of the disease, long before dementia sets in.
- here's the report from Bloomberg
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Special Report: The Alzheimer's pipeline: What's next?