Drug being tested for brain injury

By Clay Holtzman
July 13, 2005

An Albuquerque company that is developing a drug for the treatment of Lou Gehrig's disease says a similar version might have a future in the treatment of traumatic brain injuries.

This week, Maas BiolAB LLC announced it will partner with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Maryland through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) to further develop the cyclosporin drug for battlefield traumatic brain injuries and treatment for exposure to nerve agents.

The Maas BiolAB brain injury treatment drug, called NeuroSTAT, has been tested at Walter Reed since 2003 when the privately held company agreed to work with the U.S. Army under a Material Transfer Agreement.

Michael Vickers, director of administration at Mass BiolAB, says the CRADA agreement with Walter Reed will help his company better test the NeuroSTAT drug and will aid in its eventual application for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

He says much of the nerve damage caused by brain injuries comes after the initial injury. Mass BiolAB's NeuroSTAT drug works by protecting the mitochondria within a nerve cell and stopping it from slowly dying after the initial injury.

The drug is injected into a patient as soon as possible after a serious injury and can cross the blood-brain barrier through capillaries sheared by the injury, Vickers says.

Applications for such a drug are wide ranging, including treatment of concussions for athletes to shell-shocked combat soldiers and even victims of nerve agents, says Vickers.

Maas BiolAB is developing its cyclosporin drug, which is actually a new version of an existing drug used for immuno-suppression in organ transplant patients, to help treat ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis).

ALS, named Lou Gehrig's disease for the baseball Hall of Famer who developed the illness while a player with the New York Yankees, affects between 30,000 and 50,000 Americans, with about 5,000 newly diagnosed cases each year. It is a progressive, degenerative disease that attacks motor neurons in the brain and spinal cord.

The company has secured patents in Japan, the U.S. and with the European Union for both its ALS and brain injury treatment drugs, according to Vickers.

Development research on the NeuroSTAT drug is currently underway at Walter Reed and on Thursday, July 14, a scientist at the institute will present his research involving the drug at the Maryland Technology Development Corp.'s (TEDCO) conference on commercializing government researched technologies.

Maas BiolAB is based in Albuquerque and its Chief Executive Officer, Marcus Keep, is a professor of neurosurgery at the School of Medicine at the University of New Mexico.

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