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Compound shows significant potential as Alzheimer’s disease modifier

Bryostatin, a compound that showed an ability to induce synaptogenesis and prevent neuronal death in pretrials, now shows potential as a modifier of Alzheimer’s disease in patients who were memantine-naive, according to data presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference.

Researchers, led by Richard Thompson, PhD, of the biostatistics department at Johns Hopkins University, randomly assigned 150 such patients in a 1:1:1 ratio to receive either 20 µg of bryostatin (Neurotope Bioscence Inc.), 40 µg of bryostatin, or placebo weekly every 2 weeks for 11 weeks.

They found the patients who received 20 µg bryostatin and were memantine-naive had positive multiple severe impairment battery scores starting at week 5, and scores were maintained for the entire study follow-up period of 30 days after a patient received their last dose. At the end of that period, these patients had a 6.1-point difference in their severe impairment battery scores vs. those who received placebo (95% CI, 1.5-10.7). There was no treatment effect observed in patients who received monotherapy with memantine.

“Data from many other laboratories over the years implicating [N-Nitrosodimethylamine] in memory processing could now take on new meaning from Neurotrope’s clinical results with bryostatin — in the absence of memantine,” Daniel Alkon, MD, president and chief scientific officer, Neurotrope, said in a press release. – by Janel Miller

Reference: Thompson R, et al. Significant cognitive improvement with bryostatin for advanced Alzheimer’s patients in the absence of memantine. Presented at: Alzheimer’s Association International Conference; July 22-26, 2018; Chicago.

Disclosure: Alkon is president and chief scientific officer at Neurotope. Healio Family Medicine was unable to determine the other authors' relevant financial disclosures prior to publication.