News

A NEW APPROACH

In August 2016, Alion was invited to present our Alzheimer’s disease program to the Clinical Trials Selection committee of the University of California, San Diego. Our program to develop a new approach to treat Alzheimer’s disease and our clinical candidates, both short term and for future development, was met with enthusiasm as both unique and promising when compared with current approaches.

We have short term clinical candidates and molecules that we will continue to develop with time. Some molecules have the potential to treat both the pathology and symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease.

In addition to Alzheimer’s disease, the program presented to UCSD included the potential of our molecules to treat Parkinson’s and other Central Nervous System diseases. We anticipate that the Parkinson’s disease program will be partnered in 2017.

CNS PROGRAM NEWS

Alion has identified a number of small molecules that modulate our therapeutic targets for new Alzheimer’s disease and other CNS therapeutics. We have identified 6 Existing Therapeutics, not developed to treat Alzheimer’s disease that show great promise as a therapeutic for AD and Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy. Studies conducted independently of Alion, have confirmed the activity of our molecules and their potential to treat AD. The molecules have the possibility of exhibiting as many as four different mechanisms of action against the therapeutic target.

Recently our collaborators at the University of Toronto and New Liberty Proteomics have identified a number of unexpected activities of Alion’s Alzheimer’s disease therapeutic candidates. Both new chemical entities and repurposed therapeutics have now demonstrated modulation of several relevant therapeutic targets including two enzymes associated with the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, inhibition of new protein-protein interactions have been identified, adding to the previously known activity of the molecules. The molecules were originally designed to inhibit a particular protein-protein interaction and proteolysis of a specific protein. In total, the molecules have now been shown to function by 4-5 mechanisms of action related to known processes that are believed to result in Alzheimer’s symptoms and, or progression of the disease. Molecules that exhibit polypharmacology offer considerable advantage in targeting any disease. Since Alzheimer’s and Central Nervous System diseases in general are multi-factorial with respect to cause, a molecule that can simultaneously modulate more than one therapeutic target offers significant advantage over a molecule that can only affect a single process.

ALION'S FUTURE

As Alion advances our current programs, we see many opportunities to develop additional therapeutics for Central Nervous System diseases.

By combining molecules from the programs currently in progress, we have opportunities to treat a number of serious human diseases, including Parkinson’s disease, Cerebral Amyloid Angiopathy.

Molecules developed and identified by Alion may further be combined with existing therapeutics nearing patent expiration for even more opportunities.

We expect to develop effective and cost containing pharmaceuticals as our programs advance.  Interest in our partnering programs has increased significantly.

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