New drug from Spain’s University of Barcelona offers hope for Alzheimer’s sufferers

RESEARCHERS from the University of Barcelona have made a breakthrough in producing a drug for Alzheimer’s disease sufferers after testing it on mice.

Though the disease is incurable, most of the current drugs used have a limited impact and only in the early stages of the disease.

Over 800,000 people in Spain have Alzheimer’s and the Barcelona research has come up with a drug that has neuro-protective and anti-inflammatory benefits.

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The patent has been licensed to a pharmaceutical firm so that human trials can begin to get approval for the drug to be used.

The study is the culmination of seven years of research in which researchers have used a new approach, based on the inflammatory processes that contribute to triggering the disease and modulating its progression.

“Strategies that have been tried unsuccessfully over the past ten years have specifically targeted beta-amyloid accumulation and plaque formation in the brain,” the authors say.

“There is now evidence that neuro-inflammation is a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease and therefore dealing with inflammatory processes is a promising therapeutic strategy,” they added.

The new compound is an inhibitor of soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH), an enzyme involved in the regulation of several physiological processes, including inflamation and pain response.

The results of the study show that treatment with the new compound had neuro-protective effects in two mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease, resulting in improved memory and neural network.

Barcelona team member, Santiago Vazquez, said: “This could help preserve neuronal function and reduce neuronal death associated with Alzheimer’s disease.”