Bayer Schering collaborates with AC Immune on Alzheimer's vaccine

German drug major Bayer Schering Pharma will provide its development candidate florbetaben, a so called PET (positron emission tomography) tracer, to the Swiss-based biopharmaceutical company AC Immune SA, to support a clinical trial in the field of Alzheimer´s disease (AD). Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This study will be conducted to develop a therapy option for the treatment of AD. Bayer´s novel PET tracer florbetaben will be applied for imaging of beta-Amyloid deposition in the brain of patients undergoing the Phase I clinical testing of AC Immune´s Alzheimer´s vaccine ACI-24. In this collaboration, florbetaben will be tested for the very first time in the development of a potential therapeutic for Alzheimer's patients.

"Bayer Schering Pharma has already demonstrated the potential of florbetaben to image beta-Amyloid deposition in the brain in its own phase II study," said Thomas Balzer, head of global clinical development, Therapeutic Area Diagnostic Imaging at the German firm

Currently, there is no diagnostic test on the market that can detect beta-Amyloid deposition in the brain - a pathological hallmark of Alzheimer´s disease - in patient´s lifetime. Today, the clinical diagnosis of AD is based on cognitive tests, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and Computerized Tomography (CT) scans to exclude other dementia diseases.