First drug discovery project funded by Dementia Consortium

A collaboration between experts at the University of Southampton, UK, and the research charity MRC Technology, will target new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

The drug discovery deal is the first to be financed by the Dementia Consortium, a £3 million ($4.7 million) collaboration between Japanese drug major Eisai (TYO: 4523) and US pharma major Eli Lilly (NYSE: LLY), Alzheimer’s Research UK and MRC Technology.

The team will build on their current finding that a protein in the immune system called CSF1R could be the key to an effective new drug for the disease. Together with drug discovery experts at MRC Technology, they will seek to develop novel therapeutics to target the immune system. Researchers now believe that Alzheimer’s disturbs the brain’s inflammatory response, causing the damage associated with the disease. CSF1R is a key player in regulating the brain’s immune response. In their previous studies in mice, the team found that blocking CSF1R can dampen the inflammatory response to nerve cell death and improve symptoms in other neurodegenerative diseases. However, the compounds currently available to block CSF1R are not ideal to take into the clinic, due to unwanted effects and difficulties getting into the brain. This investment will allow the researchers to explore other, more targeted approaches to block CSF1R.