Today, Accera Inc., launched Axona for the treatment of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) in the United States. Axona, a medical food, represents a novel approach to the treatment of AD and is designed to address a key nutritional deficiency associated with the disease. The brains of AD patients are unable to properly use glucose, essentially leading to the starvation of neurons. Axona provides these neurons with an alternative energy source – ketone bodies – which are produced when the food is metabolized by the liver. According to CEO Steve Orndorff: “Similar to how insulin helps diabetics, Axona supplements energy for the brain so that neurons can continue to function properly and patients can maintain cognition. As a company focused on developing new therapies for central nervous system disorders, we’re very excited about Axona’s potential to help the AD community.”
The opportunity for a new AD treatment is significant with 5.2M Americans currently affected – a number that is expected to grow substantially as the baby boomers advance in age. In a double-blind, randomized, placebo controlled study, patients taking Axona showed a significant cognitive improvement (as measured by the ADAS-cog score) after 45 days and a slight improvement after 90 days compared to patients on placebo who showed a cognitive decline. Axona is compatible for use in combination with current drug therapies. Axona, available by prescription only, is supplied in individual packets to be mixed with water and taken with breakfast. Axona represents the first commercial launch for Accera, a Broomfield, Colorado based biotechnology company focused on delivering breakthrough therapies for central nervous system diseases. A RockyRadar profile of the company is available here.
