Platform & products

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Platform

reMYND has a proprietary phenotypic screening platform to discover disease-modifying small molecule treatments and their novel target and MoA to counteract the toxicity induced by misfolded proteins, such as Tau for AD or Synuclein for PD. We validate and optimize our leads in our proprietary cellular assays and animal models. In addition, we can identify the corresponding novel drug target and its mode-of-action through a multitude of assays such as three-hybrid screening.

Such phenotypic platform is especially fit to address the need for real breakthroughs by discovering first-in-class medicines, cfr. Swinney et al.

Pipeline overview

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Lead Alzheimer program ReS19-T

AlzheimerCurrently 46,8 million people worldwide suffer from dementia, doubling every 20 years. Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is by far the most common dementia in late life with a prevalence of one in nine people with an age of 65 and older and is the 6th leading cause of death.

Pathologically the disease is characterized by the presence of amyloid aBeta plaques and fibrillary Tau tangles.  Symptoms include memory loss and other cognitive tasks which severely disrupt daily life of patients and family members. This cognitive impairment results from synaptic loss, later on followed by neuronal degeneration in specific brain regions. Ca2+ dyshomeostasis is a pivotal process driving the loss of synaptic plasticity with as well aBeta as Tau pathology

Even though current therapeutics sell for 5 billion USD and are forecasted to grow to 11 billion USD by 2021 (CAGR 11%), no treatments are available that stop or even slow down disease progression. Existing therapies are all symptomatic, whereas most ongoing developments for causal remedies aimed to inhibit neuronal degeneration have had mixed results up to now.

reMYND’s lead ReS19-T program restores calcium homeostasis in AD, a process central in the disease cascade leading to neuronal demise and build-up of plaques and tangles. By targeting the disease in its tracks ReS19-T mitigates neuronal loss and pathology but has also an immediate symptomatic benefit on synaptic plasticity, cognition and cerebrospinal biomarkers, allowing for a manageable clinical translatibility.

The program entered the clinic in H2 of 2020.

Huntington program ReS18-H

Huntington’s Disease (HD) is the most common monogenic neurological disorder in Western populations, with 10 to 13 cases per 100.000 people. Mutation carriers develop the first motor symptoms in their 30’s or 40’s and inexorably succumb to the disease two decades later.

Patients carry a version of the IT15 gene encoding a pathological form of huntingtin (mHtt) protein that is highly prone to form neurotoxic oligomers and insoluble aggregates. Neuropathologically, HD entails a progressive dysfunction and loss of medium spiny neurons (MSNs) in the striatum leading to impaired corticostriatal transmission which underlie chorea and bradykinesia – two major motor symptoms in HD. Other symptoms include anxiety, depression and a decline in cognitive abilities leading to dementia.

Although the genetic origin of HD is well defined, the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying the disease are complex and not fully understood. Current treatments are symptomatic and supportive treatment to improve quality of live, without preventing or slowing down the disease progression.

reMYND’s lead ReS18-H program neutralizes the neurotoxic effects of mHtt. In a Huntington's Disease mouse model which produces mHtt like patients, ReS18-H restores function and improve survival of MSNs leading to reactivation of corticostriatal transmission and consequently to a strong improvement of motor and neuropsychiatric outcomes such as anxiety.

ReS18-H is a highly potent oral drug with excellent non-clinical safety and pharmacokinetic properties. It penetrates and distributes well in the brain.

Alzheimer and Epilepsy program ReS3-T

In Alzheimer’s disease, neuronal hyperactivity is one of the earliest pathological alterations in Alzheimer’s disease contributing to detrimental calcium dyshomeostasis. reMYND’s lead ReS3-T program targets a central regulator of neuronal activity to restrain neuronal hyperactivity in a disease context. As a result ReS3-T treatment counters Tau and Abeta driven toxicity, restores neuronal hyperactivity and is neuroprotective in preclinical models of Alzheimer’s. 

Given the mechanism and its efficacy profile in Alzheimer’s, ReS3-T is expected to counter also epileptogenesis and to have neuroprotective activity in epilepsy without the severe side effects of currently existing symptomatic treatments.

reMYND is researching and developing this program together with CD3 and NINDS.

Orphan programs

reMYND’s technology platform is amenable to address numerous other, highly debilitating protein-misfolding disorders, such as Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), to discover and develop first-in-class drug candidates. Proof-of-concept in ALS is currently ongoing.