Quintiles Invests in Kareus for Phase I Trials of Alzheimer and Type 2 Diabetes Treatments

Quintiles is partnering with Kareus Therapeutics to progress the latter’s preclinical-stage Alzheimer disease and type 2 diabetes candidates through clinical trials. Under terms of the collaboration Quintiles is making a seven-figure U.S. dollar investment in Kareus, which will allow the firm to make an IND application for its lead AD candidate KU-046. Selection of an insulin sensitizing candidate for clinical development against type 2 diabetes will be made later during 2011, the firm states. Quintiles will then carry out Phase I proof-of-relevance studies for both KU-046 and the selected diabetes candidate.

“With Quintiles as our partner, Kareus is now ideally placed to accelerate the development of our novel drug pipeline and advance the first product candidates generated by our innovative discovery platform, Karlect, into clinical studies, comments Patrick Doyle, who heads corporate and business development at Kareus.

The Swiss firm, which operates through a virtual business model, is focused on the discovery and development of small molecules as mono- or combination therapies for age-related and chronic diseases. Lead compound KU-046 was discovered using the Karlect platform, and is in development as a disease-modifying drug that targets pathways upstream of amyloid beta production in Alzheimer disease.  Kareus also has a dyslipidemia candidate undergoing preclinical proof of concept studies, together with earlier-stage preclinical programs in Alzheimer disease, diabetes, and inflammation.