AgeneBio has been awarded a grant for up to $10 million from the National Institute on Aging (NIA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support its novel GABAA discovery program to treat mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease (MCI due to AD) and delay the onset of Alzheimer's dementia. MCI due to AD is an intermediate stage between normal cognition and Alzheimer's dementia in which memory and cognitive abilities are markedly worse than expected for a person's age.

The grant is funded as part of the Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN) of the NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, a collaboration of NIH Institutes and Centers that supports research on the nervous system with one goal of developing new neurotherapeutic drugs. As part of the grant, AgeneBio will team with the BPN network, capitalizing on the scientific expertise of the company while expanding access to contract research organizations and academic institutions to advance the GABAA discovery program to the first Phase 1 clinical trial. Under terms of the grant, AgeneBio can receive up to $10 million if the program continues to advance and reach milestones.

"We are grateful to the NIH for this grant and the significant Blueprint resources to help advance AgeneBio's GABAA discovery program," said Sharon Rosenzweig-Lipson, PhD, AgeneBio's Vice President of Research and Development and the Principal Investigator on studies supported by this grant. "This support for our GABAA discovery program recognizes the scientific potential to delay the onset of Alzheimer's dementia by targeting the marked hippocampal overactivity that is present during MCI due to AD. We look forward to furthering our program with this tremendous support."

"The Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network is excited to provide its drug discovery and development expertise to advance this GABAA a5 Positive Allosteric Modulators program directed at MCI due to AD into the clinic. Research that advances understanding of the underlying causes of MCI is vital to the field of neuroscience," said Charles Cywin, PhD, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke Program Director who manages the network.

AgeneBio's pipeline of development programs is based on the research of its founder and Chief Scientific Officer, Michela Gallagher, PhD, Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.