STOCKHOLM/PRNewswire/ --

BioArctic AB (publ) (Nasdaq Stockholm: BIOA B) has in collaboration with Eisai identified a completely new biological target, which provides an opportunity to develop novel treatments for Alzheimer's disease. Today BioArctic announced that the company will have exclusive rights to utilize the results from the collaboration to develop potential antibody treatments of Alzheimer's disease.

In 2015 BioArctic and Eisai entered into an equally owned collaboration to investigate new biological targets linked to Alzheimer's disease. During this research collaboration the companies have together made an important discovery which can be developed into a totally new principle for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

From this successful collaboration, the companies have agreed that BioArctic will hold all rights to use the project results for the development of antibody-based treatments, while Eisai will hold all the rights to use the project results for the development of treatments based on small molecules. The agreement with Eisai gives BioArctic a strategically important opportunity to use its established antibody technology to develop a totally new principle for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.

BioArctic's goal is to develop new safe and efficacious disease modifying drugs for Alzheimer's disease with the aim of delaying the progression of the disease. No such drugs exist on the market today, a market with enormous unmet medical needs.

"BioArctic's portfolio will now be expanding with a new wholly owned project with a target aimed to develop innovative antibody-based disease modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease," said Gunilla Osswald, CEO of BioArctic.

About Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease is estimated to be the cause of 50-60%1) of all cases of dementia and is thus the most common dementia condition with onset in adulthood. The disease is characterized by death of neurons in the brain causing a progressive deterioration of memory and cognitive skills, such as intellectual ability, language, orientation, recognition and learning ability. The disease development in Alzheimer's disease likely starts several years before the patient shows any clinical symptoms. The disease also has a progressive development, which means that the symptoms increase as the disease progresses. The disease impairs the quality of life for the patients as well as their families. These patients also demand comprehensive nursing which means great costs for society.2) A disease modifying treatment, aimed at halting or slowing down the disease progression, therefore needs to be initiated before the degeneration of the brain has gone too far

About the collaboration between BioArctic and Eisai

Since 2005, BioArctic has a long-term collaboration with Eisai regarding the development and commercialization of drugs for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease. The most important agreements are the development and commercialization agreement concerning the BAN2401 antibody, which was signed in December 2007, and the development and commercialization agreement concerning the antibody BAN2401 back-up for Alzheimer's disease, which was signed in May 2015. Eisai is responsible for the clinical development, application for market approval and commercialization of the products.

1)      Boken om Demenssjukdomar, Liber förlag 2013, page 12 -13, Läkemedelsboken 2014 page 1088.

2)      World Alzheimer Report – Alzheimer's Disease International, 2015.