SRI teams up with ShangPharma to target Alzheimer’s

12-Oct-2017 - Last updated on 12-Oct-2017 at 15:15 GMT

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ShangPharma Innovation and SRI International are collaborating to develop treatments for neurodegenerative and inflammatory conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease.

Under the agreement, SRI will provide target specific mechanistic assays for screening, and ShangPharma Innovation (SPII) will provide in vivo models, to develop enzyme inhibitors that target brain inflammation.

“SPII is providing expert know-how in drug discovery and development and particularly in neurodegenerative disease [in vivo] models through its affiliate, ChemPartner,” said SRI spokesperson Dina Basin.

“We are also supplying Alzheimer’s disease expertise specific for this programme,” she added.

Unmet need

Basin said the partnership aims to respond to unmet need for Alzheimer’s disease treatments.

“SRI entered into the collaboration with SPII with the desire to expedite development of an effective drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease, which so far has no long term treatment options,” she told us.

Basin told us the California, US-based firms plan to license out the compounds.

Earlier this year, Outsourcing-Pharma.com investigated the challenges facing Alzheimer’s research, with particular focus on the lack of volunteer participation in clinical trials.