Inside the Arena Makeover | Kevin Lind, CFO, Arena Pharmaceuticals
Up until about three years ago Kevin Lind would likely have been identified as yet another gifted private equity executive – capable of issuing business remedies from the tip of his tongue. At least in the minds of his CFO peers, who are accustomed to listening to PE pundits routinely hand down such remedies for ailing businesses. For Lind the CFO office at Arena Pharmaceuticals is a game changer, where he no longer hands down remedies but serves as a finance leader – an individual tasked with summoning others forward and building trust across an organization even as he or she sometimes completes necessary layoffs.
Initial Reports Positive for Plasma Treatment of Alzheimer Disease
Officials are optimistic about the initial results of a phase 2 clinical trial for a new plasma-based treatment for mild-to-moderate Alzheimer disease (AD). California-based Alkahest announced that GRF6019, a proprietary plasma fraction comprised of about 400 proteins, was both safe and well-tolerated with no cognitive decline as a treatment for AD.
Alzheimer’s patients didn’t decline after getting a cocktail derived from young blood, but big questions remain
Alzheimer’s patients who received an experimental protein cocktail derived from young blood plasma maintained their performance on measures of cognition and function after six months, the biotech company behind the therapy, Alkahest, said on Monday.
NeuBase takes antisense oligos to more targets in more places
Newcomer NeuBase Therapeutics is re-engineering antisense oligos to access a broader range of targets, while simultaneously solving the modality’s dosing and delivery issues. With three approvals since the start of 2016, antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) have started to hit their stride, yet first-generation technologies are limited on multiple fronts.
Oral AMD treatment meets phase 2 endpoints
At the American Society of Retina Specialists meeting, Michael Stewart, MD, chairman and professor of ophthalmology at the Mayo Clinic of Jacksonville, Florida, discusses phase 2 results of AKST4290 (Alkahest), an orally administered small molecule CCR3 inhibitor.
Alkahest Phase 2a Study AKST4290-202 in Refractory Wet AMD Meets Primary and Secondary Endpoints
Alkahest announced that its phase 2a trial of AKST4290, an orally-administered small molecule CCR3 inhibitor, met the primary endpoint of achieving an increase in best corrected visual acuity (BCVA) in patients with refractory wet or neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD). AKST4290 was also found to be safe and well-tolerated, meeting the secondary endpoint of the trial.
Anthony Fiorino, MD, PhD: Using nVNS in Various Migraine Populations
At the 2019 American Headache Society Annual Meeting, July 11-14, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, one of the topics of focus among the newly approved therapies for migraine was the use of devices to treat the condition acutely. As such, a number of companies presented data on neuromodulation and neurostimulation devices—including electroCore, which has undergone the development of noninvasive vagus nerve stimulation (nVNS) to treat migraine, episodic cluster headache, and is currently being studied in post-traumatic headache.
