The award will help UCSD and University of Pennsylvania scientists advance treatment.

A multidisciplinary team of scientists at UC San Diego and the University of Pennsylvania has been awarded a $6.9 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to prepare a potential disease-modifying Alzheimer’s treatment for future clinical trials.

The treatment centers on a new compound identified through a joint drug discovery program at Penn and UC San Diego called CNDR-51997, found to be effective in restoring brain health in mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease. 

The new grant will help the researchers demonstrate the drug’s safety in formal studies required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

By the end of the three-year grant period, the researchers aim to submit an Investigational New Drug application to the FDA that, if approved, would allow for Phase 1 clinical studies and human testing. 

“Alzheimer’s is a devastating disease with very few treatment options,” Carlo Ballatore, professor at the UCSD Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, said in a press release.

“We are eager to advance CNDR-51997 through the drug development process.”

In mice, the researchers found that CNDR-51997 was able to reduce amyloid beta (Aβ) plaques and tau pathology in the brain, both abnormal deposits characterizing Alzheimer’s disease. 

The findings could also have applications for treatment of other diseases characterized by tau pathology, including corticobasal degeneration, Pick’s disease and traumatic brain injury. 

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