Normal and Alzheimer’s brains compared.

Once again, approaches to improving clinical trials for candidate disease-modifying drugs for Alzheimer’s disease (AD) are in the news. On February 7, 2013, the FDA issued a Draft Guidance for Industry entitled “Alzheimer’s Disease: Developing Drugs for the Treatment of Early Stage Disease”.

This document has been distributed for comment purposes only, and the FDA is seeking public comment on the draft guidance for 60 days.

The wording of the Draft Guidance illustrates the extreme difficulty of defining populations with pre-AD or very early-stage AD, and of demonstrating the efficacy of a drug in ameliorating early-stage disease, and/or in preventing its progression to later-stage disease. The document states that the FDA is “open to considering the argument that a positive biomarker result (generally included as a secondary outcome measure in a trial) in combination with a positive finding on a primary clinical outcome measure may support a claim of disease modification in AD.”

However,  there is currently no evidence-based consensus as to which biomarkers might be appropriate to support clinical findings in trials in early AD. Moreover, in “pre-AD” or very early-stage AD (i.e., before the onset of overt dementia) mild disease-related impairments are extremely challenging to assess accurately. Thus both measuring clinical outcomes and assessment via biomarkers in very early-stage AD are fraught with difficulty, making determination of drug efficacy extremely difficult. The FDA thus appears to be seeking guidance from industry and from the academic community on how these knotty problems might be solved.

The move toward conducting clinical trials in early-stage AD patients

By issuing the Draft Guidance, the FDA adds its voice to that of an ever-increasing segment of the scientific community that calls for a new focus on conducting clinical trials in early-stage AD. We discussed this trend in our August 19, 2012 and August 28, 2012 articles on the Biopharmconsortium Blog.

As we discussed, this trend is driven in part by the Phase 3 failures of Pfizer/Janssen’s bapineuzumab and Lilly’s solanezumab in 2012. Now–in February 2013–Russell Katz, M.D. (director of the Division of Neurology Products in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research) says, “The scientific community and the FDA believe that it is critical to identify and study patients with very early Alzheimer’s disease before there is too much irreversible injury to the brain. It is in this population that most researchers believe that new drugs have the best chance of providing meaningful benefit to patients.”  In line with this statement, the FDA refused to entertain Lilly’s  secondary analysis of early stage patients in the solanezumab study that we discussed in our August 28, 2012 blog article. Instead, the FDA mandated that Lilly conduct a new Phase 3 trial that will exclude the moderate-stage patients who hadn’t responded, and focus only on early-stage patients.

Recent news on clinical trials in early-stage AD

Despite the difficulties highlighted in the Draft Guidance in conducting clinical trials in early-stage AD patients, three research groups are actually conducting such trials. We outlined these studies in our August 28, 2012 blog article, and discussed one of these studies, the one begin carried out by Genentech, in greater detail in our August 19 2012 article.

The three studies are:

• Roche/Genentech’s Phase 2a trial of its its anti-amyloid MAb crenezumab, in presymptomatic members of a large Colombian kindred who harbor a mutation in presenilin 1 (PS1) that causes dominant early−onset familial AD.

• Studies conducted in conjunction with the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), a consortium led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, MO). This study will include people with mutations in any of the three genes linked to early-stage, dominantly-inherited AD–PS1, PS2, and amyloid precursor protein (APP). Initial studies focused on changes in biomarkers and in cognitive ability as a function of expected age of AD onset in people with these mutations. These included changes in concentrations of amyloid-β1–42 (Aβ42) in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF), and amyloid accumulation in the brain. In the first stage of the actual trial, three drugs (which have not yet been selected) will be tested in this population, and changes in biomarkers and cognitive performance will be followed.

• The Anti-Amyloid Treatment of Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s (A4) trial, will involve treating adults without mutations in any of the above three genes, whose brain scans show signs of amyloid accumulation. A4 is thus designed to study prevention of sporadic AD (by far the most common form of the disease). It will enroll 500 people age 70 or older who test positive on a scan of amyloid accumulation in the brain. (This is in contrast to the two trials in subjects with gene mutations, who are typically in their 30s or 40s.) A4 will also have a control arm of 500 amyloid-negative subjects. Amyloid-positive and control subjects will be entered into a three-year double-blind clinical trial that will look at changes in cognition with drug treatment. The A4 researchers [led by Reisa Sperling, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard University (Boston, MA), and Paul Aisen, University of California, San Diego] planned to select a drug for testing by December 2012.

Now there is more recent news on two of these trials.

1. On December 13, 2012, the Los Angeles Times reported that Genentech and its collaborators [affiliated with the University of Antioquia medical school (Medellin, Colombia), the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), and the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute (Phoenix, AZ)] will begin their $100 million clinical trial of crenezumab with 100 Colombians who carry the PS1 mutation in the spring of 2013. Genentech is contributing $65 million of the study’s $100-million cost. The NIH and the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute (Phoenix, AZ) are financing the remainder.

This story was also reported on December 14, 2012 by Fierce Biotech.

The design of the trial calls for 100 additional patients in Colombia with the same Alzheimer’s-related gene to receive a placebo, and an equal number of other at-risk patients without the gene to take crenezumab.  A branch of the trial will include U.S. patients as well. A “branch study” will also be conducted at UCLA, where researchers have discovered a similar genetic disposition among members of an extended family from Jalisco, Mexico. Some 30 individuals from this family who have immigrated to Southern California could participate. Around 150 other U.S. patients with similar mutations will also participate in the trial.

The trial is designed to provide evidence that targeting amyloid with crenezumab at an early stage or even before patients show signs of dementia can have a positive effect on the course of disease.

2. On January 18, 2013, Fierce Biotech reported that the researchers conducting the A4 study have chosen Lilly’s solanezumab as as the first therapeutic drug candidate to be evaluated in the trial. The A4 trial’s principal investigator, Reisa Sperling said that the researchers chose solanezumab (after considering a number of anti-amyloid drugs) because the compound has a good safety profile, and appeared to show a modest clinical benefit in the mild AD patients in Lilly’s Phase 3 trial. The A4 researchers’ confidence in solanezumab grew when this was confirmed via an independent academic analysis by the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), a consortium of academic Alzheimer’s disease clinical trial centers. The ADCS, which was established by NIH, will help facilitate the A4 trial.

The A4 researchers hope that starting treatment with solanezumab before symptoms are present, as well as treating for a longer period of time, will slow cognitive decline and ultimately prevent AD dementia.

After the failure of solanezumab in Lilly’s own Phase 3 studies, and the FDA’s rebuff of the company’s secondary analysis of early stage patients, the A4 study’s choice of solanezumab gives the drug a new lease on life. Meanwhile, Lilly will be continuing its own clinical trial program for solanezumab.

Conclusions

The three clinical trials discussed in this article should allow the scientific and medical community to answer the question as to whether treating patients with pre-AD or very early-stage AD with anti-amyloid MAb drugs can have a positive effect on the course of the disease, and slow or prevent cognitive decline. The studies may also help the scientific and medical community, and the FDA, with issues of evaluation of biomarkers and clinical outcome measures in determining disease prognosis and the efficacy of drug treatments. Given the large size and rapid growth of the at-risk population, finding safe and efficacious disease-modifying preventives and treatments for AD is of increasing urgency.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or an initial one-to-one consultation on an issue that is key to your company’s success, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

Neurofibrillary tangle.

In August and September of 2012, we published three articles on Alzheimer’s disease on the Biopharmconsortium Blog:

• New genetics study supports the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer’s disease–but the drugs still don’t work! (August 19, 2012.)
• Here we go again–Lilly’s Alzheimer’s drug solanezumab fails to show efficacy in Phase 3, but company is “encouraged” by secondary analysis. (August 28, 2012.)
• Alzheimer’s disease–where do we go from here? (September 20, 2012.)

Subsequent to the publication of our articles–on 21 November, 2012–the Wellcome Trust announced the identification of a novel pathway involved in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer’s disease (AD). This research was led by Professor Simon Lovestone and Dr Richard Killick (Kings College, London U.K.), and was published in the online edition of Molecular Psychiatry on 20 November 2012. The Wellcome Trust helped to fund the research.

As we have discussed in earlier articles on this blog, the dominant paradigm among AD researchers and drug developers is that the disease is caused by aberrant metabolism of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide, resulting in accumulation of neurotoxic Aβ plaques. This paradigm is known as the “amyloid hypothesis”. AD is also associated with neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) which are intracellular aggregates of hyperphosphorylated tau protein. In contrast to the amyloid hypothesis, some AD researchers have postulated that NFT formation is the true cause of AD. The new research links amyloid toxicity to the formation of NFTs, and identifies potential new drug targets.

The new study is based on the discovery of the role of clusterin–an extracellular chaperone protein–in sporadic (i.e., late-onset, non-familial) AD. The gene for clusterin, CLU, has been identified as a genetic risk factor for sporadic AD via a genome-wide association study published in 2009. Clusterin protein levels are also increased in the brains of transgenic mouse models of AD that express mutant forms of amyloid precursor protein (APP), as well as in the serum of humans with early stage AD.

The researchers first studied the relationship between Aβ and clusterin in mouse neuronal cells in culture. Aβ rapidly increases intracellular concentrations of clusterin in these cells. Aβ-induced increases in clusterin drives transcription of a set of genes that are involved in the induction of tau phosphorylation and of Aβ-mediated neurotoxicity. This pathway is dependent on the action of a protein known as Dickkopf-1 (Dkk1), which is an antagonist of the cell-surface signaling protein wnt. The transcriptional effects of Aβ, clusterin, and Dkk1 are mediated by activation of the wnt-planar cell polarity (PCP) pathway. Among the target genes in the clusterin-induced DKK1-WNT pathway that were identified by the researchers are EGR1 (early growth response-1), KLF10 (Krüppel-like factor-10) and NAB2 (Ngfi-A-binding protein-2)–all of these are transcriptional regulators. These genes are necessary mediators of Aβ-driven neurotoxicity and tau phosphorylation.

The researchers went on to show that transgenic mice that express mutant amyloid display the transcriptional signature of the DKK1-WNT pathway, in an age-dependent manner, as do postmortem human AD and Down syndrome hippocampus. (Most people with Down syndrome who survive into their 40s or 50s suffer from AD.) However, animal models of non-AD tauopathies (non-AD neurodegenerative diseases associated with pathological aggregation of tau, and formation of NFTs, but no amyloid plaques) do not display upregulation of transcription of genes involved in the DKK1-WNT pathway, nor does postmortem brain tissue of humans with these diseases.

The Kings College London researchers concluded that the clusterin-induced DKK1-WNT pathway may be involved in the pathogenesis of AD in humans. They also hypothesize that such strategies as blocking the effect of Aβ on clusterin or blocking the ability of Dkk1 to drive Wnt–PCP signaling might be fruitful avenues for AD drug discovery. According to the Wellcome Trust’s 21 November 2012 press release, Professor Lovestone and his colleagues have shown that they can block the toxic effects of amyloid by inhibiting DKK1-WNT signaling in cultured neuronal cells. Based on these studies, the researchers have begun a drug discovery program, and are at a stage where potential compounds are coming back to them for further testing.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or an initial one-to-one consultation on an issue that is key to your company’s success, please contact us by phone or e-mail. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

New Alzheimer’s disease model, the CVN mouse

Our August 19, 2012 and our August 28, 2012 articles on this blog focused on the latest developments in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) drug development. To summarize the conclusions of the articles:

• The results of a new genetic study by DeCode Genetics and its collaborators strongly support the amyloid hypothesis of AD, and especially the hypothesis that reducing the β-cleavage of APP [e.g., by use of an inhibitor of β-secretase (also known as the β-site APP cleaving enzyme 1, or BACE1)] may protect against the disease.

• Nevertheless, in Phase 3 trials of two anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody (MAb) drugs in patients with mild to moderate AD–Pfizer/Janssen’s bapineuzumab (often called “bapi” for short) and Lilly’s solanezumab–the drugs failed their primary cognitive and functional endpoints.

• Roche/Genentech, as well as two academic consortia, have begun clinical trials of anti-amyloid MAb drugs in asymptomatic patients with mutations that predispose them to develop AD, or in asymptomatic patients with amyloid accumulation. These studies are based on the hypothesis that the reason for the failure of anti-amyloid MAb drugs in clinical trials has been that the patients being treated had suffered extensive, irreversible brain damage. Treating patients at a much earlier stage of disease with these agents might therefore be expected to be more successful.

Analyses of the data from the Phase 3 studies of both bapi and solanezumab will be presented in scientific meetings in October 2012. An academic research consortium will present its independent analysis of the data from the EXPEDITION studies of solanezumab at the American Neurological Association (ANA) meeting in Boston on October 8, 2012, and at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) meeting in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on October 30, 2012.

According to a September 11, 2012 news article in Drug Discovery & Development, researchers who conducted the Phase 3 trials of bapi found evidence that the drug stabilized amyloid plaque in the brain and may have ameliorated further nerve damage in patients treated with the drug. This finding is among the results to be presented in the October meetings.

Development of BACE1 inhibitors

Strictly speaking, the results of the DeCode Genetics study most strongly support the development of BACE1 inhibitors. In our August 28, 2012 article, we link to a 2010 review that includes a discussion of companies developing BACE1 inhibitors. However, we also note that the development of BACE1 inhibitors has been elusive. This is because of medicinal chemistry considerations. Specifically, it has been difficult to design a specific, high-affinity inhibitor of the BACE1 active site that can cross the blood-brain barrier and which has good drug-like ADME (absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion) properties. Nevertheless, recently progress has been made in developing such compounds, and several companies are developing BACE1 inhibitors and have entered them into early-stage clinical trials.

Among the companies developing BACE1 inhibitors, as listed in a recent post on Derek Lowe’s In The Pipeline blog are CoMentis/Astellas, Merck, Lilly, and Takeda.

Satori Pharmaceuticals was developing γ-secretase inhibitors, but ran into safety problems

Developing γ-secretase inhibitors has been abandoned by the vast majority of companies, because of the essential role of these enzymes in the Notch pathway and other pathways involved in normal physiology. As a result, development of γ-secretase inhibitors for AD has not progressed beyond the preclinical stage.

Nevertheless, Satori Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, MA venture capital-backed biotech company, had been actively involved in developing γ-secretase inhibitors. Satori’s γ-secretase inhibitors were based on a proprietary scaffold derived from a compound isolated from the black cohosh plant (Actaea racemosa). The company utilized modern synthetic and medicinal chemistry to derive compounds based on this scaffold that they believed was suitable for long-term oral therapy for AD in humans. Satori’s lead compound, SPI-1865, was a potent γ-secretase modulator that decreased levels of the amyloidogenic Aβ42 peptide as well as Aβ38, increased levels of Aβ37 and Aβ39, but did not affect Aβ40. Researchers believe that decreasing Aβ42 levels in favor of shorter, less amyloidgenic A-beta forms is beneficial in treatment of AD. SPI-1865 was also selective for Aβ42 lowering over the inhibition of Notch processing, and appeared to be free of any other off-target activities.

In animal models [e.g., wild type mice and rats, and transgenic mice (Tg2576) that overexpress APP and thus have high levels of Aβ peptides] orally-administered SPI-1865 has been found to lower brain Aβ42. SPI-1865 has good brain penetration in these models, and a long half-life that should permit once a day dosing in humans.

SPI-1865 was in the preclinical stage. Satori planned to file an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application with the FDA in late 2012 with the goal of enabling initial human testing to begin in the early part of 2013.

However, in late 2012, a study in monkeys showed that Satori’s lead compound–as well as its backup compounds–disrupted adrenal function. This adverse effect was completely unexpected, and unrelated to the gamma secretase target.  As of May 30, 2013, Satori closed its doors.

Meanwhile, other companies, including Envivo Pharmaceuticals (Watertown, MA), Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Eisai continue with their R&D efforts in gamma secretase modulators for treatment of AD.

A new mouse model for AD

As Derek Lowe says in an August 31, 2012 post on “In the Pipeline” with respect to Lilly’s AD drugs, anti-amyloid MAbs, BACE1 inhibitors, and γ-secretase inhibitors are “some of the best ideas that anyone has for Alzheimer’s therapy”. Given the APP processing pathway as illustrated in the figure at the top of our August 28, 2012 article, these are the “sensible” and “logical” alternatives.

Nevertheless, there is the nagging feeling among many AD researchers that we do not understand the causes of AD, especially sporadic AD, which represents around 95% of all cases of the disease. Sporadic AD occurs in aging individuals who have normal genes for the components of the APP processing pathway. Not only do we not understand the pathobiology of sporadic AD, but we have little understanding of the normal physiological function of APP and of APP processing. Processes that may be involved in the initiation of sporadic AD may include not only those involved in Aβ production, but also those involved in Aβ clearance.

An important tool in understanding the pathobiology of AD, and potentially in developing novel therapies for the disease, would be an animal model that recapitulates the human disease as closely as possible. We published an article on AD mouse models that were designed to more closely recapitulate human AD than the most commonly used models in the September 15, 2004 issue of Genetic Engineering News. However, since the publication of our article, Carol A Colton, Ph.D. (Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC) and her colleagues have published on their research aimed at producing an even better mouse model, known as the CVN mouse. They published their research in two articles, one in PNAS in 2006 and the other in the Journal of Neuroscience in 2008.

Charles River Laboratories (CRL) (Wilmington, MA) now offers the CVN mouse to researchers who might wish to employ it in their AD research.

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) in humans, as well as various functional studies, have implicated variants in genes involved in inflammation and immune responses in susceptibility to late-onset, sporadic AD in humans. The Colton group, noting that commonly-used mouse models of AD recapitulated human disease very poorly, looked for differences between mice and humans in innate immunity. The biggest difference they found was that expression of nitric oxide synthase 2 (NOS2) the inducible form of nitric oxide synthase, is high in mice and low in humans. NOS2 is an enzyme that produces nitric oxide (NO), a highly reactive oxidant that can serve in signal transduction, neurotransmission and in cell killing by macrophages. Microglia, the macrophages of the brain, express NOS2 and NO. The Colton group has been studying the role of microglia and oxidants and antioxidants in microglia that can produce oxidative stress in the brain in normal aging and in AD.

Because of the striking difference in NOS2 expression between mice and humans, the Colton group created a transgenic mouse AD model by crossing mice that  expressed a mutant form of human APP known as APPSwDI (APP Swedish Dutch Iowa) with NOS2 knockout (NOS2 -/-) mice. The APPSwDI transgenic mouse, a well-characterized standard AD mouse model, was chosen because it expresses low levels of APP and high levels of Aβ peptides in the brain. The APPSwDI/NOS2 -/- mouse is the CVN mouse that is available from CRL.

Unlike APPSwDI mice and other standard AD mouse models, the CVN mouse recapitulates many features of human AD as the animals age, including AD-like amyloid pathology (starting at 6 weeks of age, which is early), perivascular deposition of amyloid, AD-like tau pathology (including aggregated hyperphosphoryated tau), AD-like neuronal loss, and reduction in interneuron numbers (including NPY interneurons). Age-related cognitive (learning and memory) loss (as assessed by the radial arm water maze test) was also seen. The researchers also saw increases in immune activation and inflammation (e.g., microglial activation) over the course of the disease; this appeared to be dependent on increases in Aβ and in tau.

The researchers also used the mouse to study changes in immune-related proteins over the course of the disease. Several protein that are encoded by genes that have been associated with sporadic AD via GWAS change over time in this mouse model, including APOE (which has been known to be important in AD for a long time) and BIN1. Other proteins that change over the course of disease include the complement component C1QB, and the centrosomal protein ninein. Immune activation genes such as those that encode IL-1α and TGF-β also show changes over the course of disease in these mice. The Colton group will soon publish their work on changes in these proteins and genes in the CVN mouse in a peer-reviewed journal.

In summary, the CVN mouse more faithfully models AD-like progression than other mouse models that have been used to study AD, including those that have been used in preclinical studies of such failed drug candidates as solanezumab, bapineuzumab, Flurizan (tarenflurbil), and Alzhemed (3-amino-1-propanesulfonic acid). It also allows researchers to study the role of genes and proteins such as those identified in GWAS studies in AD, and especially in sporadic AD. (However since the CVN mouse expresses a mutant form of APP, it can not be used to study all aspects of the pathophysiology of sporadic AD, especially the initiation of the disease process.) The CVN mouse can also be used in drug discovery and preclinical studies.

One example of such drug discovery studies is being carried out by the Colton group. They have recently been studying small APOE mimetic peptides in CVN mice. The subcutaneously administered APOE mimetics were reported to significantly improve behavior, while decreasing the inflammatory cytokine IL-6, as well as decreasing neurofibrillary tangle-like and amyloid plaque-like structures. These improvements are associated with apoE mimetic-mediated increases in protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A) activity. [Decreased PP2A levels in AD may be involved in formation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) which are aggregates of hyperphosphorylated tau; PP2A may also be involved in the production of Aβ peptides. The APOE mimetic are thus potential AD therapeutics.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to  your company, please click here. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

Amyloid precursor protein (APP)

As we mentioned in our August 19, 2012 article on Alzheimer’s disease (AD), the results of Phase 3 trials of Lilly’s amyloid-targeting monoclonal antibody (MAb) drug solanezumab, had been expected soon.

On August 24 2012, Lilly announced the top-line results of the two Phase 3, double-blind, placebo-controlled EXPEDITION trials of solanezumab in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The primary endpoints, both cognitive and functional, were not met in either of these trials.

However, a pre-specified secondary analysis of pooled data across both trials showed statistically significant slowing of cognitive decline in the overall study population, and pre-specified secondary subgroup analyses of pooled data across both studies showed a statistically significant slowing of cognitive decline in patients with mild Alzheimer’s disease, but not in patients with moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

These results were reported in a press release.  What was absent was data from the trials. However, the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study (ADCS), (an academic national research consortium) will present its independent analysis of the data from the EXPEDITION studies at the American Neurological Association (ANA) meeting in Boston on October 8, 2012, and at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) meeting in Monte Carlo, Monaco, on October 30, 2012.

Once again, an amyloid pathway-targeting drug for Alzheimer’s disease that was taken into Phase 3 trials despite Phase 2 results that showed no statistically significant efficacy has failed in Phase 3. Solanezumab joins a list of such failed drugs that includes Myriad Pharmaceuticals’ Flurizan (tarenflurbil), Neurochem’s (now Bellus Health) Alzhemed (3-amino-1-propanesulfonic acid), and as of July 2012, Pfizer/Janssen’s bapineuzumab (“bapi”). Nevertheless, as in the Phase 2 results with bapi, Lilly sees hope for the drug in the results of secondary analyses.

On the day of the Lilly announcement, August 24 2012, Lilly executives and stock analysts turned the results of these trials into something “positive”, as the result of the secondary analysis. This resulted in a one-day 3.4 percent increase in the price of Lilly stock. However, the results of the secondary analysis do not give Lilly any basis for going to the FDA with a New Drug Application (NDA) for solanezumab. Nor do they provide any realistic hope for AD patients, the physicians who treat them, or caregivers of AD patients.

At best, Lilly’s secondary analysis gives rise to a hypothesis–that solanezumab–and presumably other anti-amyloid MAbs–will be effective in treating earlier-stage AD patients, especially those who have not suffered extensive, irreversible brain damage. This is the very same hypothesis that is now being tested by Roche/Genentech in its clinical trials of its anti-amyloid MAb crenezumab, as we discussed in our August 19, 2012 article. Genentech is testing its drug candidate in a Phase 2a trial in a very special population–members of a large Colombian kindred who harbor a mutation in presenilin 1 (PS1) that causes dominant early−onset familial AD.

A News Focus article in the 17 August 2012 issue of Science, written by science writer Greg Miller, PhD, discusses three upcoming clinical trials designed to test the “treat early-stage or presymptomatic AD with anti-amyloid MAbs” hypothesis. One of these studies is the Genentech trial of crenezumab in the extended family in Colombia.

Another of these studies is being conducted in conjunction with the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN), a consortium led by researchers at Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, MO). This study will include people with mutations in any of the three genes linked to early-stage, dominantly-inherited AD–PS1, PS2, and amyloid precursor protein (APP).

Initial studies, published ahead of print in the July 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) looked at changes in biomarkers and in cognitive ability as a function of expected age of AD onset in people with these mutations. Concentrations of amyloid-β1–42 (Aβ42) in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) appeared to decline 25 years before expected symptom onset. This decrease may reflect impaired clearance of Aβ42 from the brain, which may be a factor in the amyloid plaque increase that is associated with AD. Amyloid accumulation in the brain was detected 15 years before expected symptom onset. Other biomarkers, as well as cognitive impairment, were also followed in the study published in the NEJM. In the first stage of the actual trial, three drugs (which have not yet been selected) will be tested in this population, and changes in biomarkers and cognitive performance will be followed.

The third study, known as the Anti-Amyloid Treatment of Asymptomatic Alzheimer’s (A4) trial, will involve treating adults without mutations in any of the above three genes, whose brain scans show signs of amyloid accumulation. A4 is thus designed to study prevention of sporadic AD (by far the most common form of the disease). It will enroll 500 people age 70 or older who test positive on a scan of amyloid accumulation in the brain. (This is in contrast to the two trials in subjects with gene mutations, who are typically in their 30s or 40s.) A4 will also have a control arm of 500 amyloid-negative subjects. Amyloid-positive and control subjects will be entered into a three-year double-blind clinical trial that will look at changes in cognition with drug treatment. The A4 researchers [led by  Reisa Sperling, Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard University (Boston, MA), and Paul Aisen, University of California, San Diego] plan to select a drug for testing by December 2012.

If Lilly wishes to test solanezumab in early-stage (or presymptomatic) sporadic AD, it will need to follow a similar methodology to the studies outlined in the new Science article, especially with respect to the use of biomarkers to define “early-stage” AD and to track the effects of the drug. Studies such as the DIAN biomarker study published in the NEJM used the positron emission tomography (PET) ligand Pittsburgh Compound-B (PiB-C11), to image amyloid plaques. However, the use of this compound is limited by the short half-life of carbon-11 (20.4 minutes). A new PET amyloid imaging agent, Amyvid (florbetapir F18 Injection) was developed by Lilly and approved by the FDA in April 2012. This compound contains fluorine-18, which has a half-life of 109.8 minutes. A recent study indicates that Amyvid provides comparable information to PiB-C11. If Lilly wishes to conduct new studies of solanezumab in early-stage or presymptomatic sporadic AD, it may wish to use Amyvid, as suggested in a comment to an August 24, 2012 solanezumab post in Derek Lowe’s blog “In the Pipeline”. However, the FDA, in its press release announcing the approval of Amyvid, warns that increased amyloid plaque content (as detected by Amyvid or Pittsburgh Compound-B) may be present in the brains of patients with non-AD neurologic conditions, and in older people with normal cognition. Thus defining or detecting “early-stage (or presymptomatic) sporadic AD” is difficult.

In any case, for Lilly to follow up on its secondary analyses of the Phase 3 clinical trials of solanezumab will necessitate additional long and expensive clinical trials, with no assurance of success. Lilly executives will need to determine if such a course is worth the risk, or whether it should invest in other R&D efforts that might have a higher probability of success.

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As the producers of this blog, and as consultants to the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry, Haberman Associates would like to hear from you. If you are in a biotech or pharmaceutical company, and would like a 15-20-minute, no-obligation telephone discussion of issues raised by this or other blog articles, or of other issues that are important to  your company, please click here. We also welcome your comments on this or any other article on this blog.

The APP processing pathway

An exciting new study on Alzheimer’s disease (AD) was published in the 2 August issue of Nature. The study was carried out by researchers at deCode Genetics (Reykjavik Iceland) and their collaborators at Genentech and several academic institutions. A News and Views article by leading AD researcher Bart De Strooper and genomics researcher Thierry Voet (both at KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium) analyzes this study and its implications.

Amyloid plaques are a central feature of AD.  They largely consist of amyloid-β (Aβ) peptides. Aβ peptides are formed via sequential proteolytic processing of the amyloid precursor protein (APP), catalyzed by two aspartyl protease enzymes–β-secretase and γ-secretase.  The β-site APP cleaving enzyme 1 (BACE1) cleaves APP predominantly at a unique site. However, γ-secretase cleaves the resulting carboxy-terminal fragment at several sites, with preference for positions 40 and 42. This leads to formation of amyloid-β1–40 (Aβ40) and Aβ1–42 (Aβ42) peptides. APP processing to yield Aβ peptides is illustrated by the figure at the top of this article.

By studying rare, familial cases of early-onset AD, human geneticists have identified three disease genes in these conditions— genes for APP, and for two presenilins, PS1 and PS2. The presenilins are components of γ-secretase, which exists as an intramembrane protease complex. Mainly because of these genetic studies, as well as studies in animal models and postmortem studies of AD brains, the majority of AD researchers have focused on the APP processing pathway and/or on aggregation of Aβ to form plaques as intervention points for therapeutic strategies. The hypothesis that this is the central AD disease pathway is called the “amyloid hypothesis”.

Up until the publication of the new deCode report, of the 30-odd coding mutations in APP that have been found, around 25 are pathogenic, usually resulting in autosomal dominant early-onset Alzheimer’s disease. Coding mutations at or near the β- or γ-proteolytic sites have appeared to result in overproduction of either total Aβ or a shift in the Aβ40:Aβ42 ratio towards formation of Aβ42, which is the more toxic of the two Aβ peptide. Until now, mutations in APP have not been implicated in the common, late-onset form of Alzheimer’s disease.

In the new deCode study, the researchers studied coding variants in APP in a set of whole-genome sequence data from 1,795 Icelanders. They identified a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), designated as rs63750847. The A allele of this SNP (rs63750847-A) results in an alanine to threonine substitution at position 673 in APP (A673T). The A673T mutation was found to be significantly more common in the elderly (age 85-100) control group (i.e., those without AD) than in the AD group. The researchers therefore concluded that the mutation is protective against AD.

The researchers also found that in a cohort of individuals over 80, those who were heterozygous for the A673T mutation performed better in a test of mental capacity than did control subjects. The authors concluded that the A673T mutation not only protects against AD, but also against the mild cognitive decline that is normally associated with old age.

In cellular studies (i.e., studies in cultured cells transfected with genes coding for wild type or mutant APP) and in biochemical studies, the researchers found that APP carrying the A673T mutation undergoes about 40% less cleavage by BACE1 than does wild-type APP, resulting in 40% less production of both Aβ40 and Aβ42.

The researchers conclude that the strong protective effect of the A673T mutation against AD provides proof of principle for the hypothesis that reducing the β-cleavage of APP (e.g., by use of BACE1 inhibitors, such as those being  developed by some pharmaceutical companies) may protect against the disease. (However, success in developing BACE1 inhibitors has been elusive.) Moreover, since the A673T allele also protects against cognitive decline in elderly individuals who do not have AD, AD and age-related mild cognitive decline may be mediated through the same or similar mechanisms.

Despite this compelling genetic finding, amyloid pathway-targeting drugs have not shown efficacy in Phase 3 trials

In our January 26, 2010 blog article, we discussed Phase 2 clinical trials of bapineuzumab, a monoclonal antibody (MAb) drug that is specific for Aβ, in mild to moderate AD. In that article, we referred to the drug as “Elan/Wyeth’s bapineuzumab”, after the original developers of the drug. As the result of mergers and acquisitions, the drug is now referred to as “Pfizer/Janssen’s bapineuzumab”. Many commentators call it “bapi” for short.

As we discussed in that article, the overall result of the Phase 2 trial was that there was no difference in cognitive function between patients in the bapi-treated and the placebo groups. However, the study did not have sufficient statistical power to exclude the possibility that there was such a difference. Retrospective analysis of the data from the trial suggested that bapi-treated patients who were not carriers of the apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele (ApoE4) showed improved cognitive function as compared to placebo treatment. Given that this conclusion was reached via retrospective analysis, the idea that the bapi was efficacious in ApoE4 noncarriers was only a hypothesis, which would require prospective clinical trials to confirm. Janssen and Pfizer had been conducted large Phase 3 trials of bapi, which they prospectively segregated into ApoE4 carrier and noncarrier groups in order to test this hypothesis.

As of the past several weeks, the results of these Phase 3 trials have come in. On July 23rd, 2012, Pfizer announced the top-line results of an 18-month Janssen-led Phase 3 study of intravenous bapi in approximately 1,100 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease who carry at least one ApoE4 allele. The drug failed to meet its co-primary endpoints (change in cognitive and functional performance compared to placebo) in that study. On August 6, 2012, Pfizer announced the top-line results of the corresponding Phase 3 study of intravenous bapi in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease who do not carry the ApoE4 genotype. Once again, the co-primary clinical endpoints were not met. Based on these results, the companies decided to discontinue all other intravenous bapi studies in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease.

The bapi development program continues a history of amyloid pathway-targeting drugs that were taken into Phase 3 trials despite Phase 2 results that showed no statistically significant efficacy. For example, we cited the cases of Myriad Pharmaceuticals’ Flurizan (tarenflurbil) and Neurochem’s (now Bellus Health) Alzhemed (3-amino-1-propanesulfonic acid) in our January 26, 2010 blog article.

Leading industry commentator Matthew Herper of Forbes referred to the failure of bapi as “the latest piece of evidence of the drug industry’s strange gambling problem.” Johnson & Johnson (the parent company of Janssen) spent more than $1 billion to invest in Elan and get one-quarter of bapi, and Wyeth (later Pfizer) and Elan put the drug into Phase 3, despite the Phase 2 failure of bapi.

The temptation for pharmaceutical companies to take a chance on an AD drug such as bapi, Flurizan, and Alzhemed is driven by the complete lack of disease-modifying AD drugs, and the thinking that even a not-very-effective drug that receives FDA approval might generate billions of dollars in annual sales. In the case of bapi there was also that tantalizing suggestion that bapi might show efficacy in the subset of patients who lacked ApoE4.

In an August 16, 2012 article in Forbes, Dr. John LaMattina (the former President of Pfizer Global R&D) engages in informed speculation as to why bapi was moved into Phase 3. Dr. LaMattina (in contrast to critics like Mr. Herper, who discounted the ApoE4 retrospective analysis as “data-dredging” that was “likely to be due to chance”) referred to the efficacy signal of the Phase 2 trials as “mixed” due to the ApoE4 analysis. He stated that such “mixed results” present an “agonizing” dilemma for a pharmaceutical company.

In deciding whether to go forward Phase 3 trials of bapi, Dr. LaMattina further speculates that the decision might have been influenced by stakeholders such as AD patient advocates, and scientists who strongly believed in the science behind bapi, especially the amyloid hypothesis. Moreover, bapi had been shown to be relatively safe. In addition, dropping bapi would have caused public relations damage. Dr. LaMattina concludes, based on this analysis, “…this was a situation where these companies were in possession of a relatively safe drug, with a modest chance of success in being efficacious in what may be the biggest scourge that society will face.  How can you not make this investment?” He reminds us that pharmaceutical R&D “is a high risk, high reward business”.

Nevertheless, bapi joined Flurizan and Alzhemed on the list of high-profile amyloid-pathway failures. Now a Phase 3 trial of Lilly’s solanezumab, another MAb drug that targets Aβ, is nearing completion, with the results expected in September. Published Phase 2 results were designed to test safety, not efficacy, and 12 weeks of drug treatment gave no change in cognitive function. Although the results of the Phase 3 trial will not be known until they are reported, analysts expect the drug to fail because of its similarity to bapi.

Why don’t amyloid pathway-targeting drugs show efficacy in clinical trials, despite the compelling genetic evidence for the amyloid hypothesis?

The almost standard answer to that question given by scientists and clinicians who support the amyloid hypothesis is that we have been testing the drugs too late in the course of AD progression, after the damage to the brain has become irreversible. Roche/Genentech is testing this idea in its clinical trials of its drug candidate crenezumab (licensed from AC Immune), which is yet another MAb drug that targets Aβ. In a 5-year Phase 2a clinical trial, Genentech is testing intravenous crenezumab in 300 cognitively healthy individuals from a large Colombian kindred who harbor the Glu280Ala (codon 280 Glu to Ala substitution) PS1 mutation. This mutation causes dominant early−onset familial AD, and is associated with increased levels of Aβ42 in plasma, skin fibroblasts, and the brain. Family members with this mutation begin showing cognitive impairment around age 45, and full dementia around age 51.

Genentech is conducting this trial in collaboration with the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute and the National Institutes of Health. The company says that this trial is the first-ever AD prevention study in cognitively healthy individuals. Genentech further says that the trial may help to determine if the amyloid hypothesis is correct–more specifically, it may help to determine if a drug that works by depleting amyloid plaques can be effective in preventing and/or treating AD.

Moreover, Genentech states that there is significant unmet medical need within this Colombian population. This large extended family may have as many as 5,000 living members, and no other population in the world offers a sufficiently large number of mutation carriers close to the age of potential disease onset for a study to determine whether a prevention treatment may work. This effort by Genentech thus represents an application of a rare disease strategy to AD.

It is also possible, however that drugs that work by lowering levels of Aβ will not be efficacious in treating AD, even if administered early in the disease process. This may be true despite the findings of the new genetic study by the deCode Genetics group. For example, in their Nature News and Views article, Drs. De Strooper and Voet remind us that if the A673T mutation indeed works via lowering of Aβ levels, it works via lifelong lowering of Aβ, not lowering of Aβ in patients who already have AD, as in all clinical trials so far of anti-Aβ antibodies. (Even Genentech’s Colombian trial may involve lowering of Aβ levels relatively late in the course of exposure of patients to a disease process that will result in AD.)

Moreover, as these authors speculate on the basis of work on another mutation at the same site in the APP protein, it is possible that the protective effect of the A673T mutation may be due to changing the aggregation properties of Aβ peptides, resulting in a less-toxic form of Aβ. If true, this would mean that the protective effect of the A673T mutation is due to qualitative, rather than quantitative changes in Aβ. In that case, the finding of protection from AD by the A673T mutation might not be as predictive of the efficacy of such Aβ-lowering treatments as the use of anti-Aβ MAb drugs as drug developers might like.
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