BioArctic and University of Oslo, Institute of Clinical Medicine (IKM), have signed a research collaboration agreement to increase the understanding of Apolipoprotein E (ApoE) as a drug target for Alzheimer’s disease.

BioArctic will provide financial support for a two-year research position, with potential extension, and Professor Lars Nilsson at the Department of Pharmacology will be heading the research project at University of Oslo.

Read more: Exclusive interview with Gunilla Osswald, CEO, BioArctic

”Alzheimer’s patients today lack disease modifying treatments. We have several potential drug candidates in different stages of development, with BAN2401 in phase 3 as the most advanced,” says Gunilla Osswald, CEO of BioArctic. “We are very happy about the collaboration with the University of Oslo, and hope that it will help to further increase the mechanistic understanding of ApoE in Alzheimer’s disease. The goal is that the collaboration will strengthen our research on ApoE as a target protein (project name AD1801) and to contribute to the development of a new treatment that can be used by itself or in combination with other therapies.”

Apolipoprotein E

Apolipoprotein E is the major genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer’s disease. The goals of the collaboration are to understand the mechanistic involvement of Apolipoprotein E in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis, and to generate pharmacological efficacy data with drug candidates.

In the end, BioArctic hopes to be able to use the findings of the research collaboration to offer Alzheimer’s disease patients improved quality of life through better pharmacological treatment.

“ApoE has been little explored for drug development in spite of being a key protein in Alzheimer’s disease biology. I am looking forward to collaborate with the skilled scientists at BioArctic on this interesting project,” says Lars Nilsson.

Photo of Gunilla Osswald, CEO, BioArctic