We were introduced to the head of neuroscience at Houston Methodist as part of our due diligence process; his entire career was built upon the removal of plaque from the brain and would not even consider an alternative theory. We ran into this for years. It made funding the trials very difficult. We were totally ignored by all the Alzheimer's charities and orgs (ie Seth Rogan's for example). Only the Michael J. Fox foundation contributed early on.

However, our drug, now known as Zunveyl, was a pro-drug of already on the market Galanatmine, which was the second most commonly prescribed drug in the world for this disease (about $6BN/yr). Our pro-drug almost eliminated the side effects of Galanamine (nausea, vomiting) and enabled us to increase dosage high enough to actually get enough molecules into the brain. It was (is) awesome. Some of our first clinical trials were healthy young adults - they did extremely well. I don't think I can share the actual results but I hope that we (or someone) can fund a study to get approval for "regular people" usage one day given how well this test went. Later tests went just a well but only thanks to the "fast track" program were we able to even get to market.

Even today after being on the market for about a year now, the market uptake is slow due to insurance company approvals. We are getting reorders like crazy but often new patients get denied initially and then doctors have to appeal and then they get approved. This has been taking about 6 months on average and is brutal for people with the disease (and their families). Since getting a drug to patients is actually a (sadly and surprisingly) large sales and marketing expense, the company (Alpha Cognition) is focusing on long-term-care centers for now, but we had always hoped that this would be available much more broadly and much faster. Several of the early investor's parents were alive and afflicted with this disease when we started, but have since passed away. I hope that we can get this out and help others - faster.

The mother company that spun this out is also working on other molecules to try to stop Alzheimer's itself, rather than "only" help with symptoms but as always funding is a challenge. Clinical trials must be done correctly and are thus expensive.

Been living this battle for 15+ years and hoped that this can shed a little light on how things have been.