WisTa Laboratories announces collaborative R&D agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma

WisTa Laboratories Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of TauRx Pharmaceuticals, announced today that they have entered a collaborative R&D agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma AG, Germany, which could redefine the way Alzheimer's disease (AD) and related disorders are currently being diagnosed and treated. Through this collaboration, the two companies will develop specific markers that will aid in the diagnostics and management of Tau-protein related AD using brain-imaging technology. The diagnostics they are jointly aiming to develop will have application in disease treatment and potentially disease prevention.

“I am delighted with this agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma who is a major force in the development of novel imaging technologies”

Professor Claude Wischik, Executive Chairman of TauRx Pharmaceuticals, will review the company's therapeutic program in AD and the collaboration at the Jefferies 2010 Global Life Sciences Conference Wednesday, June 9 at 4:30 p.m. ET.

Currently, AD is diagnosed on the basis of clinically visible symptoms - meaning that significant damage to nerve cells will have already occurred by the time the disease is detected. A non-invasive, sensitive and accurate diagnostic test is therefore needed to confirm diagnosis of symptomatic AD, detect disease variants and, identify patients with earlier non-symptomatic AD who could benefit from preventative therapy. Importantly, currently available therapies only treat the symptoms and they can neither modify the course of the disease nor prevent it. The combination of a sensitive and accurate diagnostic and a disease modifying or preventative therapy could bring hope to patients and their families and also potentially protect health care budgets.

"I am delighted with this agreement with Bayer Schering Pharma who is a major force in the development of novel imaging technologies," said Professor Claude Wischik, Executive Chairman of TauRx Pharmaceuticals. "By bringing together our scientific expertise in Tau protein and BSP's R&D capability in brain imaging diagnostics, we stand the best possible chance of bringing the combination of Tau-based diagnostics and therapeutics to patients as soon as possible. This collaboration marks another stage in the gradually increasing recognition by the field of the importance of the Tau protein pathology for both diagnostics and therapeutics in AD."

"Tau protein aggregation inside nerve cells has a strong correlation with the decline in brain function seen in AD patients. This process, which leads to the formation of Tau tangles originally discovered by Alzheimer, is very slow and takes some 20 years of accumulation before symptoms of dementia are seen. The memory critical brain regions are hit first. This means that there is a long window of opportunity during which a tangle prevention treatment could be used to stop the disease process in its tracks."

As part of the collaboration, TauRx will utilize its proprietary technology platform of patented ligands, specialized Tau-directed assays and its animal models to optimise the development of ligands. Diagnostic products arising from the collaboration will be developed by Bayer Schering Pharma, whereas compounds with therapeutic potential will be developed by TauRx.