Saracatinib, a drug originally developed as a cancer treatment, is now being tested in a phase IIa trial of patients with Alzheimer’s disease after a phase Ib safety trial and a successful Alzheimer’s mouse model study justified its further clinical development, according to a news release from the National Institutes of Health.
Researchers at Yale University, led by Dr. Stephen Strittmatter , obtained saracatinib through the New Therapeutic Uses program , sponsored by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences ( NCATS ). They showed in a study published online March 21 that saracatinib successfully reduced many biological changes associated with Alzheimer’s in mice and reversed spatial learning and memory loss (Ann. Neurol. 2015 March 21 [ doi:10.1002/ana.24394]). Because much of the groundwork required for human clinical trials had already been established in cancer trials of the drug, the researchers were able to move to a phase IIa clinical trial within 18 months.
“This work demonstrates what can happen when [the National Institutes of Health], the biopharmaceutical industry, and academia innovate and collaborate to share resources and knowledge. The speed with which this compound moved to human trials validates our New Therapeutic Uses program model and serves NCATS’ mission to deliver more treatments to more patients more quickly,” Dr. Christopher P. Austin, director of NCATS, said in the news release.
