Bionomics Limited (ASX: BNO, ADR: BMICY) Vice-President of Neuroscience Research Dr Sue O’Connor will today present Bionomics’ BNC375 drug candidate for Alzheimer’s disease and other cognitive disorders at the annual COGNITO meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark. Dr O’Connor’s presentation, BNC375, a positive allosteric modulator of the a7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor for treatment of cognitive impairment, will discuss the Bionomics drug candidate developed as part of the Company’s a7 program. As well as Alzheimer’s disease, BNC375 has the potential to be effective in a number of other multibillion dollar markets including schizophrenia, Parkinson’s disease and ADHD. There is a large body of evidence implicating the a7 nAChR in the pathophysiology of several neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric diseases. Modulation of this receptor enhances cognitive processes, for example attention, which is compromised in these disorders. BNC375 has in vivo memory enhancing properties that have been demonstrated in animal models of cognitive impairment. Both episodic memory and working memory were found to be improved while equivalent performance was found when compared to Donepezil, a Pfizer product marketed as Aricept which is used to treat cognitive and behavioural effects of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. BNC375 has a 100-fold therapeutic dose range and has demonstrated a wide safety window in preclinical studies conducted to date. COGNITO is a five-year translational neuroscience program funded by the Strategic Research Council of Denmark. The program brings together Danish and international scientists combining basic neuroscience, industrial drug-discovery, molecular brain imaging, biomarker discovery and clinical research in the aim of defining novel treatments of cognitive dysfunction.
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