Bayer Schering Partners AC Immune

Bayer Schering Pharma has reported that it will provide its development candidate florbetaben, a PET (positron emission tomography) tracer, to AC Immune, to support a clinical trial in the field of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).

Reportedly, the study is conducted to develop a therapy option for the treatment of AD. Bayer’s novel PET tracer florbetaben will be applied for imaging of beta-Amyloid deposition in the brain of patients undergoing the phase I clinical testing of AC Immune’s Alzheimer’s vaccine – ACI-24.

The company said that in the collaboration, florbetaben will be tested for the first time in the development of a potential therapeutic for Alzheimer’s patients.

Thomas Balzer, head of global clinical development therapeutic area diagnostic imaging at Bayer Schering Pharma, said: “Bayer Schering Pharma has already demonstrated the potential of florbetaben to image beta-Amyloid deposition in the brain in its own phase II study. The cooperation with AC Immune enables the collection of valuable clinical data for florbetaben in patients treated with AC Immune’s novel therapeutic vaccine.”

Andrea Pfeifer, CEO of AC Immune, said: “This collaboration with Bayer Schering Pharma adds further value to our Alzheimer´s vaccine ACI-24. The adoption of a diagnostic imaging substance visualising the deposition of beta-Amyloid that is targeted by our vaccine can be an important parameter for dose selection, and will provide useful complementary data. There is a key trend in the industry to co-develop therapy guiding diagnostics alongside drugs for patients. We look forward to working with Bayer´s experts in this ground-breaking collaboration.”