Scavenges ROS species
GNT Pharma, headquartered in Yongin, South Korea, is a biotechnology company developing innovative drugs for the treatment of neurological diseases including Alzheimer’s disease (AD).
GNT Pharma developed its novel drug ‘Crisdesalazine (also known as AAD-2004)’ for the treatment of canine cognitive dysfunction syndrome (or dementia in dogs) and commercialized it successfully under the product name of ‘ZedaCure’ in February this year.
Crisdesalazine has anti-inflammatory effects by inhibiting the action of microsomal prostaglandin E synthase-1 (mPGES-1), an inducible enzyme that synthesizes proinflammatory PGE2 and is over-expressed in the AD brains. Crisdesalazine also has anti-oxidant effects. In the AD animal models, crisdesalazine showed anti-amyloid and anti-tau effects.
Based on that canine dementia is an age-related neurodegenerative disease with the brain pathologies similar to those in human AD and that crisdesalazine showed the therapeutic efficacy in canine dementia, the company expects that crisdesalazine may give hope for the treatment of AD in humans.
After completing its phase 1a clinical trial (single ascending dose trial) of crisdesalazine for the AD patients in 2017, the company has currently been undergoing its phase 1b study that is expected to be completed by the first quarter of next year. The company will apply for its phase 2 studies as soon as it completes the phase 1b study.
