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Düsseldorf, Germany, Feb. 4, 2021 – The innovative drug candidate PRI-002 against Alzheimer’s dementia will enter further clinical testing in patients.
The Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation will support the future development of drug candidate PRI-002 for Alzheimer’s dementia. This was decided by the agency at its board meeting, on Feb. 4, 2021.
“The drug candidate PRI-002 realizes a completely new and highly innovative anti-prionic mechanism of action. It is able to break down the neurotoxic Abeta oligomers in the brain and convert them into harmless monomers,” explains Dieter Willbold, Professor of Physical Biology at Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and Director of the Institute of Structural Biochemistry (IBI-7) at Forschungszentrum Jülich. He is also member of Priavoid’s Supervisory Board and founder of Priavoid. Other compounds in the Priavoid pipeline also exhibit this mechanism. All specifically designed active ingredients consist of D-enantiomeric amino acid building blocks. “Priavoid is using the anti-prionic mechanism of action with the D-peptide platform technology for drug development against additional neurodegenerative diseases,” continues Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Detlev Riesner, co-founder of the biotech companies Qiagen and Evotec and Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Priavoid. Professor Stanley Prusiner, University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and 1997 Nobel Laureate for the prion research he founded, is delighted that the application of the concept of prions to Alzheimer’s disease is now expected to lead to a breakthrough in treatment. Professor Prusiner has been a member of Priavoid’s supervisory board since the beginning of December 2020. The D-enantiomeric active ingredients are very stable in the human body and can therefore be administered orally as tablets or capsules. “This is a very patient convenient route of administration especially for elder patients”, stated Dagmar Jürgens, Director of Clinical Research at Priavoid. “We will intensively pursue the development of our platform to provide patients with a treatment for neurodegenerative diseases as soon as possible” said Philipp Bürling, CEO of Priavoid.
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About Priavoid GmbH:
Priavoid GmbH is a spin-off of Research Center Jülich and Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf. The company was founded in 2017 and is based in Düsseldorf. It develops novel all-d-peptide drug candidates for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis) or tauopathies. The most advanced of these is PRI-002 for Alzheimer’s disease. All drug candidates are designed to have an anti-prionic mechanism of action to dissolve neurotoxic protein aggregates. The company is privately funded, including by Qiagen co-founder Prof. em. Dr. Dr. h.c. Detlev Riesner. In addition, the development is significantly supported by the German Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovations, which is funding the PRIMUS-AD phase II study for the drug candidate PRI-002.
