Ixico selected for Alzheimer's clinical trial

Neuroscience artificial intelligence (AI) analytics company Ixico has been selected by a current mid-sized biopharmaceutical client to support a phase 2 Alzheimer's disease clinical trial, it announced on Wednesday.

The AIM-traded firm said the study, to be conducted across 125 sites in 10 countries over five years, would investigate an anti-Tau antibody treatment for individuals with prodromal and mild Alzheimer's disease (AD).

For the study, Ixico would provide advanced neuroimaging involving structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), volumetric MRI (vMRI), diffusion MRI (dMRI) and arterial spin labelling (ASL).

Ixico said AD affected around 50 million people worldwide, with no available therapies to address the underlying disease pathology.

It said biopharmaceutical companies were responding to the challenge with innovations in clinical trials and treatment targets in their AD pipelines.

Those include increased diversification of drug candidates by investigating disease-modifying agents targeting pathways other than the historical focus area of amyloid.

It said the new study, which followed on from the AD study award by Cyclerion Therapeutics on 2 March, demonstrated the growing industry trend of target diversification in AD drug development.

Ixico said that while the contract did not change its financial performance expectations for the year, it did add to its “strong” order book and increased visibility of future revenues.

“With less well-defined target biology, limited availability of biomarkers and higher risk of failure, drug development in Alzheimer's disease presents significant challenges for the industry,” said chief commercial officer Lammert Albers.

“In turn, biopharmaceutical sponsors are responding with more disease-modifying treatment candidates and greater diversity of drug targets in AD pipelines.

“We are proud to support sponsors in their tireless efforts to bring potential treatments for this devastating disease, and these recent awards reflect the confidence clients place in Ixico as the trusted neuroimaging partner for their Alzheimer's disease pipeline innovations.”

At 1141 GMT, shares in Ixico were up 1.69% at 87.96p.