What difference does it make? Collaboration key in tackling Alzheimer's

Probiodrug, a biopharmaceutical company developing therapeutic products to treat Alzheimer's disease has entered into a collaboration with Dutch biotech Crossbeta Biosciences

The agreement means that Probiodrug will be able to use Crossbeta’s proprietary technology in support of its biomarker development activities

Alzheimer's, the most common form of dementia affecting 26 million people worldwide, is characterised by misfolded beta-amyloid and tau proteins.

The oligomeric forms of these proteins play a pivotal role in the patho-physiology of the disease.

Oligomer-specific research and development of therapeutics, biomarkers and diagnostics is very challenging due to the inherent instability of these protein aggregates.

Crossbeta’s proprietary stabilisation technology generates pure and functional preparations of oligomeric protein species and thereby overcomes this problem, enabling highly reproducible and well-controlled assays for pre-clinical and clinical R&D.

Inge Lues, chief development officer of Probiodrug, said: “We are very pleased to announce the collaboration with Crossbeta.

“The potential of Crossbeta’s unique technology has significant impact to overcome the challenge of establishing and validating sensitive and specific assays for Abeta- and pGlu-Abeta-oligomers to be used in the clinical studies of Probiodrug’s lead candidate, Glutaminyl Cyclase (QC) inhibitor PQ912.”

Guus Scheefhals, chief executive officer of Crossbeta, added: “This strategic partnership with Probiodrug is very exciting and an important recognition of our expertise and capabilities.

“As a clinical-stage company, Probiodrug is a particularly important partner in our growing collaborative network.

“We look forward to contributing towards the development of this promising therapeutic approach targeting AD.”