AmideBio giving product to researchers

LOUISVILLE – AmideBio LLC plans to start distributing a peptide research product used in Alzheimer’s research free of charge in first quarter 2012.

The Louisville-based biotech company plans to give small amounts of the product – called amyloid – to researchers at universities and pharmaceutical companies across the country, said Misha Plam, a co-founder of AmideBio.

Plam said that AmideBio’s new amyloid is a biological product that is 99 percent pure, while others currently being used for research are synthetic – and have about 97 percent purity.

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The difference in purity can make a huge impact on future research results, Plam said. Once the new product is accepted by the research community, AmideBio plans to sell it, Plam said. He declined to say how long the approval process might take.

“All of the (researchers) will be able to evaluate it and say that it’s pure, and we will get feedback from the community. It’s not just universities but also ‘big pharma’ companies,” Plam said.

About 50 universities around the country have research grants from the federal National Institutes of Health to conduct Alzheimer’s research that could benefit from the product, Plam said. Pharmaceutical companies such as Eli Lilly and Co. (NYSE: LLY) based in Indianapolis have been involved in a variety of clinical trials for Alzheimer’s-related drugs.

Peptides are biological substances often used in research. AmideBio’s newest product is made using a hybrid recombinant chemical process technology invented at the University of Colorado at Boulder and licensed by AmideBio. The manufacturing technology lowers the cost of making peptides, which may lead to shorter development and manufacturing time in the future for clinical and therapeutic products, the company has said.

The peptide manufacturing technology also minimizes toxicity, making it more environmentally sustainable, the company has said. AmideBio in May announced that it had received $575,000 in new equity funding from a group of private investors.

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.