Eisai Company Ltd (ESALY)

[flemsnopes]

EISAI (ESALY) DRUG, TARGRETIN - EXTRAPOLATION UP TO YOU

<Researchers identified a drug which, in animals, rapidly decreases both plaque area and soluble amyloid beta levels in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease. And it's FDA-approved.>

<The drug in question is Targretin (bexarotene, Eisai Inc.) which was approved for the treatment of cutaneous T-cell lymphoma in 2000.>

<When Landreth and his team treated several different mouse models of Alzheimer's disease with Targretin, levels of soluble amyloid beta decreased within six hours. The team tested their mice on several learning tasks; in some of those tasks, they saw improvements with as little as one week of treatment, though in others, longer treatment was necessary. The drug also improved the animals' olfactory abilities, which are normally impaired by plaque deposition. Finally, animals that had lost the ability to build nests – a social behavior for mice – were once again able to do so after Targretin treatment.>

<Although he has no solid proof, Landreth's hunch is that the drug's effectiveness at improving behavioral symptoms is in large part due to its effects on soluble amyloid beta, not plaques. "I think that as we pull down Abeta levels, synaptic function improves, and that subserves the improvement in behavior," he said.>

http://www.bioworld.com/content/eisai-lymphoma-drug-reverses-alzheimers-disease-symptoms-0