AmideBio licenses Alzheimer drug

BOULDER — Biotechnology company AmideBio LLC signed an agreement with the University of Colorado for rights to commercialize Alzheimer’s drugs being researched at the Boulder campus.

Terms of the deal between the Boulder-based company and CU were not disclosed. A representative from the CU Technology Transfer Office did not immediately return a call for comment.

Researcher Michael Stowell recently discovered a molecular target in the human body that is degraded by Alzheimer’s, and his team believes that it could create a drug to disrupt that degradation, CU said in a press statement. The team hopes to begin testing a new drug candidate in the coming year.

“The novel approach to treating Alzheimer’s disease discovered by Dr. Stowell’s group has great potential, and we are proud to become part of the community working to understand this disease and searching for its cure,” Misha Plam, AmideBio’s president and CEO, said in the statement.

AmideBio previously licensed a method developed by Stowell for manufacturing recombinant proteins and peptides in the body — molecules which are similar to proteins but smaller.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia in the United States, and the fifth-leading cause of death for those aged 65 and older. An estimated 5.3 million Americans of all ages have some form of the disease, which typically begins with gradual memory loss.

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