Authored by Stella Sarraf, PhD
CEO, Founder
In September, we recognized World Alzheimer’s Month and championed the much-needed attention and awareness to one of the greatest health crises of our time. However, the battle against Alzheimer’s is not confined to just one month. More than 55 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s and related dementias – a figure projected to almost triple by 2050.
Behind these statistics are patients and families navigating the complexities of diagnosis and tests, as well as understanding the intricacies of what therapies or trials may be right for the stage of their loved one’s disease. The culmination is the realization that current treatment options can, at best, slow progression, buying time, but not halting the disease or restoring what’s been lost.
I’ve always believed that patients and their families deserve more. To offer real hope, we must think creatively and innovatively; move beyond the current diagnostic and treatment paradigm to an approach focused on regeneration and restoration to improve a person’s quality of life.
The Patient Journey
The first challenge in understanding Alzheimer’s is simply the diagnosis. The testing
requirements can be overwhelming, with a battery of cognitive assessments, blood work and brain imaging – Magnetic Resonance images (MRI) or Positron Emission Tomography (PET) and sometimes invasive cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) testing. Knowing the disease is a progressive condition worsening with time, the long wait for these results can add to the uncertainty and patient anxiety. Patients know that their physicians need more in their arsenal to help fight the disease even as researchers strive for earlier, non-invasive diagnosis.
Treatments available to date include cholinesterase inhibitors, introduced in the 1990s, that slow the progression of symptoms, rather than halt or reverse the underlying disease. A newer class of monoclonal antibody treatments has gained recent attention by targeting tau proteins and amyloid plaques to try to slow disease progression. The research into these therapies continues, despite currently requiring months of treatment before any measurable benefit is observed. Although they may slow the rate of decline, they are unable to repair neural damage or restore lost function.
There are also safety considerations associated with these treatments. Anti-amyloid therapies can trigger unwanted immune response and worrying side effects like swelling and bleeding in the brain, necessitating regular monitoring to mitigate these risks.
Synaptic Regeneration: A New Playbook for Alzheimer’s Treatment
The clinical field of Alzheimer’s recognizes that, like other neurodegenerative conditions, Alzheimer’s is a synaptopathy, defined by the loss of synapses – the connections in the brain responsible for cognition and memory. Synapse loss occurs at the earliest stages of disease onset.
This foundational understanding led to the development of SPG302 – Spinogenix’s
investigational, first-in-class small molecule therapeutic. Taken as a tablet once a day, this drug was designed to work at the synaptic level to restore synapses and potentially reverse cognitive decline. By targeting the core issue of synaptic loss and cognitive impairment, SPG302 is not contingent on amyloid or tau protein status. This could permit simplification of clinical assessments (brain scan, blood and CFS testing), accelerating the patient treatment journey. SPG302 has completed testing in a phase 2a clinical trial, showing preliminary evidence of cognitive improvement that is appears to have a rapid onset (within weeks of treatment) and lasted through 24 weeks (open label extension treatment).
Our mission is to give doctors more tools to fight this disease, and our intention is to develop SPG302 so it can be used as both a standalone therapy and in conjunction with existing medications.
The Path Forward
Doctors need new treatment options, a more diverse toolkit to shape the future of
Alzheimer’s care. This new path requires education and advocacy, so that stakeholders across the ecosystem – physicians, policymakers, patients and grassroots advocates – can recognize the value of a new modality to combat Alzheimer’s, namely a regenerative treatment.
Synaptic regeneration represents a new chapter in the next generation of therapies, a new path forward to treat Alzheimer’s. Patients, physicians and all stakeholders should not settle for simply slowing decline, and aim higher: the regeneration and restoration of synapses.
We look forward to working with Alzheimer’s awareness and advocacy groups to further education on this new innovation, providing more for the community than just publicizing the scale of the problem. I see a future where Alzheimer’s and associated dementias are something that people can live with, not die from.