Michael J. Fox Foundation awards Alchemab $595k for Parkinson’s disease programme

The company identifies naturally occurring antibodies from individuals resilient to disease. It says the grant will fund research performed at Alchemab following its identification of antibodies that target prostaglandin biology in Parkinson's disease (PD), a potentially unique approach to treatment. Alchemab is researching the therapeutic effects of its resilient patient-derived antibody in PD.

The grant was awarded through MJFF's Parkinson's Disease Therapeutics Pipeline Program which seeks to advance testing of promising therapeutic developments that address unmet medical needs in people with PD.

The programme is designed to fund therapeutic development with a clear focus to prevent, stop, or delay disease progression, or to reduce the challenges of daily symptoms.

Alchemab's antibodies were discovered using its innovative platform which integrates advanced proteomics, bioinformatics, and machine learning in the analysis of patient samples to find signals associated with resilience to disease.

Using samples from patients predisposed to PD symptoms and samples from patients with a typical disease course, Alchemab identified a target it believes may contribute to disease resistance. Its research explores how the prostaglandin pathway impacts disease progression, using comprehensive genetic and molecular analyses.

It is also applying its computation resources to mine large PD datasets like the Parkinson's Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) to identify novel targets.

Young Kwon, Chief Executive Officer of Alchemab, said: "We are delighted to be working with The Michael J. Fox Foundation whose goals we share of fostering innovative Parkinson's disease research, enhancing understanding of the disease, and developing targeted therapies.

“This exciting programme is another example of the power of a patient-led, unbiased approach to target and therapeutics discovery. Alongside our programmes, which have the potential to impact frontotemporal dementia, Huntington's and Alzheimer's disease, we hope that our novel Parkinson's disease venture will be transformative for patients and unlock new disease understanding.”

Sohini Chowdhury, chief programme officer at MJFF, added: “Alchemab has a unique approach to its research and we are very much looking forward to seeing how this can identify new biomarkers and explore the role of inhibitory antibodies in Parkinson's resilient individuals.

“We hope that this work will expand new treatment pathways and bring hope to patients challenged by the disease.”