Allyx Therapeutics announces first Parkinson’s disease patient treated with ALX-001

Allyx Therapeutics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company, has announced that the first patient has been dosed with its lead compound, ALX-001, in a new clinical study assessing safety, pharmacokinetics and potential therapeutic response in patients with Parkinson’s disease. ALX-001 is a highly selective, synapse-targeted, disease-modifying oral therapy.

“Allyx Therapeutics is moving forward with strong momentum to develop ALX-001 as the first-ever disease-modifying small molecule for neurodegenerative diseases, with two concurrent safety studies in patients with Parkinson’s disease and with Alzheimer’s disease, adding important information to the body of knowledge for this novel therapeutic approach,” said Dr. Tim Siegert, chief operating officer and co-founder of Allyx Therapeutics.

The 28-day Parkinson’s disease study (NCT06309147) is assessing the safety of ALX-001 dosed twice daily at either 50 mg or 100 mg versus placebo in adults between 21 and 80 years of age, and will also investigate dopamine transporter levels in the brain measured with single photon emission computed tomography as an early marker of therapeutic response to a treatment that targets synapse restoration.

The study is being conducted by the Duke Clinical Research Institute (DCRI) and is supported with grant funding awarded to Allyx Therapeutics from The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.

ALX-001 (previously BMS-984923) is a silent allosteric modulator of mGluR5 that selectively blocks the pathogenic activation of the receptor while preserving the normal physiological glutamate signaling that is required for cognition. As such, ALX-001 has a wide therapeutic window that can saturate receptors while avoiding on-target toxicity observed with negative allosteric modulators.

mGluR5 has been shown to be essential for mediating synaptic dysfunction and loss caused by multiple misfolded extracellular protein species, and as such, presents a novel approach for treating Alzheimer's and Parkinson’s disease.

ALX-001 is an orally bioavailable and brain penetrant small molecule with demonstrated mGluR5 selective engagement. The molecule was originally identified by Bristol Myers Squibb, but the mechanism of action for neurodegenerative diseases and the identification of ALX-001 as disease-modifying for Alzheimer’s disease was discovered by Allyx scientific founder Stephen Strittmatter at Yale School of Medicine.

Allyx Therapeutics has an exclusive worldwide license for ALX-001 from Bristol Myers Squibb and Yale School of Medicine.

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