Cambridge, MA – October 24, 2023 – Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals, leaders in stress granule biology that afflict a wide range of neurodegenerative disorders, today announced that the company’s Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Benjamin Wolozin MD, Ph.D., will be presenting new preclinical research at the 2023 Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference. CTAD is the premier industry event highlighting new research and breakthroughs in the areas of disease-modifying agents, gene therapy, vaccines and multimodal interventions.
Dr. Wolozin’s session – “Development of Orally Available, Brain Penetrant Compound Reducing Tau Pathology” – is part of CTAD’s late breaking track and will take place on Friday, October 27th at 4:45 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom AB on Floor 2 of the Boston Park Plaza hotel. CTAD 23 is sold out, but attendees can still register for virtual attendance.
In addition to his role at Aquinnah, Dr. Wolozin is also a professor of Anatomy & Neurobiology and Neurology at the Boston University School of Medicine. A distinguished scientist, Dr. Wolozin identified one of the first molecular markers for the tangle pathology that accumulates in neurons in Alzheimer’s disease, the first to identify the link between the use of statins and reduced rates of Alzheimer’s disease, and more recently he discovered the role of persistent stress granules in Alzheimer’s disease and ALS.
“Alzheimer’s disease is devastating for patients and their families,” said Dr. Wolozin. “Aquinnah is excited to be at CTAD presenting a novel therapeutic approach for Alzheimer’s disease. Our therapeutic removes abnormal tau protein, which is the key protein contributing to loss of memory and cognition in Alzheimer’s disease. If successful in clinical trials, Aquinnah’s treatment offers the hope of reducing the brain damage and correspondingly restoring brain function for patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.”
Aquinnah’s CEO, Glenn Larsen, Ph.D., emphasized the significance of Aquinnah’s results that will be presented at CTAD, “In the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease progression, two proteins have received significant attention – beta-amyloid and Tau. The FDA recently approved two anti-amyloid biologic drugs. The approval of these drugs was very important for the field, but both drugs offer only modest benefits and require intravenous administration. Aquinnah’s approach will allow patients to orally take a pill that targets the Tau protein pathology that is also involved in Alzheimer’s disease progression and that potentially can be used alone or in combination with anti-amyloid drugs.”
Focused on innovative neurodegenerative research, Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals is funded by AbbVie, Pfizer and Takeda with additional grant funding from the National Institute of Health, the Alzheimer’s Association, The Rainwater Foundation and the Mass Life Sciences Center. Based in Kendall Square, the company operates from The Engine at MIT and is an alumni company of LabCentral.
About Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals
Aquinnah Pharmaceuticals is harnessing the power of stress granule biology to develop oral small molecule therapeutics in Neurodegenerative Diseases, focusing on Alzheimer’s disease and other tauopathy diseases such as Progressive Supranuclear Palsy and Frontotemporal dementia and ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, by developing chemical modulators of stress granule pathology. More information is available at www.aquinnahpharma.com.