Precision medicine is an approach to treating complex diseases. Successfully used in oncology, AC Immune is pioneering precision medicine approaches to address Alzheimer’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. The goal is to monitor each patient’s disease-specific proteinopathies, which enables the well-timed selection of the most appropriate therapeutic(s).
What does precision medicine do for you?
Improved diagnosis for more accurate treatments
- Precision medicine ensures that the right treatment gets to the right patient, at the right time
- Earlier, more reliable diagnosis of neurodegenerative diseases will drive the shift from treatment to prevention
- Successful combination of therapies will rely on comprehensive analysis of each patient’s disease profile
adapted from: Willis & Lord, Nat. Rev. Immunology, 2015
Refined research strategies accelerate and de-risk clinical development
- Non-invasive diagnostics monitor biomarkers and disease progression to establish treatment efficacy
- Careful patient selection is used to confirm the presence of the targeted pathology and ensure that therapeutic candidates are evaluated in well-designed trials using the right biomarkers
- Precision medicine breaks down neurodegenerative diseases into individual pathologies to deal with their root causes
- Better understanding the individual contributions of targets and their interplay is key to treatment success
What is AC Immune’s precision medicine approach?
We employ an integrated approach to developing therapeutics and diagnostics in parallel. Our industry-leading broad and diverse pipeline is uniquely positioned to enable precision medicine for neurodegenerative diseases. Our suite of modalities targets multiple hallmark proteins of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and certain NeuroOrphan indications.
We discover, develop and optimize highly specific small molecules and immunotherapies to:
- Selectively address hallmark proteins and recently identified novel targets
- Provide several therapeutic options targeting different disease stages
- Access intracellular proteins to prevent damage to neurons
- Inhibit extracellular spread of pathology across the brain
Our Roadmap to Successful Therapies for Neurodegenerative Diseases
Applying cutting-edge diagnostic tools and identifying patients at risk or in early stages of disease when neuronal health is preserved offers the best chance of preventing neurodegenerative diseases using active vaccination.
Tau is a key player in neurodegeneration. AC Immune’s multiple Tau research programs in early and late stages of the disease target both intracellular Tau and extracellular spreading including oligos and toxic Tau species.
Understanding the aggregation and spreading of pathological Tau throughout the brain could become possible using Tau PET imaging and biofluid markers to assess the levels of different Tau species, select patients and quantify treatment effects.
Multiple factors are thought to contribute to the development of Alzheimer’s disease including genetic, lifestyle and environmental elements. To understand if a candidate drug has therapeutic potential, it is important to minimize variability with respect to pathophysiology.
We are developing these efforts with our prevention studies and continue to evaluate familial Alzheimer’s disease caused by a genetic risk factor or NeuroOrphan indications driven by novel targets.
As Alzheimer’s disease is in fact a complex mix of contributing pathologies, there is a need to accurately diagnose and target underlying pathologies. We are developing an integrated diagnostic and therapeutic strategy to deliver precision medicine for patients with neurodegenerative conditions. Selective diagnostics are applied to treat study populations based on specific proteinopathies.
In the central nervous system, microglia maintain a healthy brain environment by clearing debris, including misfolded and aggregated proteins. Chronic hyper-stimulation of microglial cells by these pathological aggregates is emerging as a hallmark of neurodegenerative diseases leading to inflammation which induces further damage to brain cells. We develop monoclonal antibodies and small molecules targeting the inflammasome pathway to reduce neuroinflammation.
We are also broadening our precision medicine approach to address other neurodegenerative diseases by accelerating therapeutics and diagnostics targeting a-syn in Parkinson’s disease, Tau in frontotemporal dementia and TDP-43 in certain NeuroOrphan diseases.
Our Broad and Diversified Pipeline
Our clinical stage pipeline uniquely integrates diagnostic and therapeutic candidates as well as different treatment modalities (such as antibodies, active immunotherapies and small molecule drugs) against the most promising validated therapeutic targets.
Our clinical Trials
We believe adaptive biomarker-based trial designs provide the necessary flexibility in an increasingly dynamic regulatory environment and shorten the time from bench to bedside.