Cambridge Life Sciences companies are in the vanguard of a new fight against ageing-related disease.

One Nucleus, the international membership organisation for companies in the Life Science and healthcare industry, has gathered speakers that are globally influential in the field for a Cambridge event this Thursday (January 26) that brings the challenge into sharp focus.

The CNS & Ageing event – at Clare College, Cambridge – is the latest in One Nucleus’ Life Science Leadership Series.

One Nucleus chief executive, Harriet Fear, told Business Weekly: “We are fortunate to have secured a world-class speaker faculty including both academic, industry and regulatory experts to stimulate debate around the issues and catalyse new partnerships, new ideas and ultimately the development of new and effective treatments for patients in these areas of unmet medical need.

“Cambridge has long been a region to which scientists and investors have looked in order to identify and shape the ‘next big thing’. By attracting an international audience to these leadership events in an increasingly globalised industry like healthcare, One Nucleus aims to ensure Cambridge remains a premier location for such innovation.”

Fear added: “In times such as these, when investment and risk appetite are at a low ebb, success in the life science sector, and corresponding success in treating an ageing population, requires exceptional leadership in technical development, financing, the regulatory environment and commercialisation.

“Our event brings like-minded professionals with a common therapeutic or technology focus together as a means to share their insights, challenging each other on how new medicines for key disease areas can be developed more efficiently.

“CNS and Ageing is a field where the focus has traditionally been dominated by neurodegenerative disorders and the development of required neuroprotective strategies where perceived markets are very large - yet it has proven an extremely difficult area in which to commercially develop innovative new medicines.

“The programme includes world-leading presenters focusing on the future direction of how we may manage neurodegenerative disorder progression through disease modification approaches and how our understanding of the genetic basis for such disorders may be leveraged to develop better treatments.

“Speakers will provide their insights into the topic through showcasing of their own enabling technology platforms, research and alliances against a backdrop of learning and formal One-to-One partnering, alongside the enhanced networking opportunity resulting from delegates aligned to the focus area.

“The prevalence of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Multiple Sclerosis is increasing, but the development of effective new treatments has proven a major challenge for a variety of reasons.

“These include the complex molecular nature of the degenerative process, the need for therapeutic agents to cross the blood-brain-barrier, the immense costs of protracted clinical trials to demonstrate efficacy for cautious regulators and the poor predictability of pre-clinical models when it comes to effects in man.”

The world’s population is ageing. The World Health Organisation predicts that globally, there will soon be more than one billion people aged over 65 – that’s one in eight of the entire world population.

Fear said: “While this increase in longevity is at least in part a result of triumphs in medical research and new medicine discovery of previous decades, it also creates new and extremely significant challenges as age-related disorders become more prevalent.

“Ageing is the greatest risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases. Mitochondrial DNA mutations and oxidative stress both contribute to the ageing process, often manifesting their impact through impaired cognitive and motor function.

“According to the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, there are more than 600 neurologic disorders, with approximately 50 million Americans affected each year.

“These diseases cost the US economy billions of dollars each year in direct healthcare costs and lost opportunities. It is estimated that $100 billion per year is spent on Alzheimer’s disease alone.” (Meek et al. 1998).

Fear added: “At the molecular level, pathologies including abnormal protein aggregation, autoimmunity, inflammation and ion channel activity have all been implicated in disease progression.

“More recently, however, research has started to unveil the genetic basis for some of the disorders. It is also becoming clear that many similarities appear which relate these diseases to one another on a sub-cellular level.

“Discovering these similarities offers hope for therapeutic advances that could ameliorate many diseases simultaneously. Several of the speakers at our event will present their recent work aimed at developing novel medicines that aim to leverage this increased scientific understanding to provide an effective mechanism to intervene in these disorders.”

Fear said that the future of an effective and affordable approach to managing neurological disorders that increase with age will rest on the sector’s collective ability to:-

• Increase the amount of global collaboration in order to access sufficient critical mass on genetic and biomarker studies that will reveal degrees of scientific knowledge hitherto inaccessible

• Integrate the above knowledge of the disease pathways suitable for therapeutic intervention into new medicine discovery processes to develop effective treatments and reliably stratify patients to enhance response rates

• Develop and inform the regulatory and reimbursement framework that will enable innovative medicines to be adopted

• Attract the development capital required to deliver on leading edge innovation

The event registration on Thursday is at 8.30am for a 9.30am start. To check out the event go to www.onenucleus.com/cns-ageing or contact Tony Jones – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Subsequent events in the Life Science Leadership Series are on May 17 – Infectious Diseases and Vaccines – September 26: Healthcare Technologies and January 2013: Antibody Based Therapeutics.