During a fireside chat at BIO in San Diego earlier this summer, Daniel Skovronsky confirmed Eli Lilly’s commitment to finding an effective therapy for ALZ’s disease.
During a fireside chat at BIO International in San Diego earlier this summer, Daniel Skovronsky, now president of Lilly Research Labs, confirmed Eli Lilly’s commitment to finding an effective therapy for Alzheimer’s disease.
Skovronsky, who has a passion for neuroscience, said the company will continue to strive to find a treatment for the dreaded neurological disease. He was unflappable in his commitment to that goal, despite the recent Phase III failure of Alzheimer’s disease drug solanezumab that cost Eli Lilly an estimated $9 billion valuation. At BIO, Skovronsky said the company will continue to move forward with up to eight different programs for Alzheimer’s disease.
Skovronsky’s confirmation of developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s also supported comments Chief Executive Officer David Ricks said earlier this year about finding a cure for the disease. Eli Lilly remains committed to developing a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease and has eight different experimental drugs in its pipeline, including lanabecestat, a BACE drug it licensed from AstraZeneca, as well as the failed sola. Lilly has a Phase I and Phase II BACE program. Despite the Phase III failure, Skovronsky said they learned a lot particularly that the drug still has promise.
“We need to hit Alzheimer’s from multiple angles,” Skovronsky said.
And that’s just what the company is doing. Fast forward several months and Lilly continues to push forward. On Wednesday, EP Vantage highlighted and analyzed the company’s five Phase I programs for Alzheimer’s disease. Much like what Skovronsky said about learning from the Phase III sola failure, EP Vantage pointed to some of the hopes the Lilly programs have for blocking the development of amyloid plaques.
In addition to the BACE program, EP Vantage said Lilly has advanced two projects, LY3002813 and MEDI1814, into Phase I. The drug products are antibodies designed to block N3pG and amyloid beta 42 respectively, EP Vantage said. LY3002813 is designed to bind to a beta amyloid peptide known as pGlu-Abeta, which is prominent in the plaques of Alzheimer’s disease patients, the publication said.
“One of the selling points of LY3002813 is its potential synergistic effect in combination with a BACE inhibitor, which Lilly claims has resulted in ‘near complete removal of pre-existing beta-amyloid’ in preclinical models,” EP Vantage said.
In its analysis, EP Vantage said these programs have little competition in the clinic as of now.
In addition to amyloid plaque, Lilly is also looking at brain tangles, which are twisted tau proteins that cause cells to die.
Skovronsky said sola is still in play as well. Now the company is looking to determine solanezumanb’s effects on pre-symptomatic patients. Those patients have amyloid plaque, but they do not show signs of dementia, he said. Additionally, Lilly is studying solanezumab in patients who have an inherited mutation that causes Alzheimer’s by over production of amyloid plaque.
