A stunning international first, an Auckland research team has discovered two
drugs it believes could halt the progression of some of mankind's cruellest illnesses - including Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis.

Professor Peter Gluckman's Auckland Medical School team has spent 10 years developing
brain rescue therapy and has patented two drugs that have sparked international excitement.

The drugs protect brain cells from damage or death through disease and injury.

One, a hormone given by injection, is expected to begin multinational clinical trials on multiple sclerosis patients within 12 months - and New Zealanders will be among the first in the world to take part.

The second is a small molecule which because of its size can be easily administered, is cheap to make and has few apparent side-effects.

It is this drug that holds new hope for victims of progressive neurological diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's, as well as acute conditions such as strokes.

Clinical trials are expected to begin in 2000 and if they go well, the drugs could be on the market by 2001.

"We are on the verge of some thing unique", said Professor Gluckman.

"A small molecule which can be given quite straight forwardly - perhaps in pill form - doesn't have obvious side-effects and which is very potent in stopping brain cells dying is exactly what everyone has been looking for for a long time.

"In a range of diseases, of which Alzheimer's is a classic example, we believe we can stop the progression of disease by stopping brain cells dying. The data we have is sufficient to merit large-scale investment. It is certainly the best thing on the horizon internationally".

Professor Gluckman said the power of the drug to prevent damage was discovered by sheer luck.

"We thought it was a junk by-product of a chemical reaction in the brain. Everyone assumed it had no biological role. But we discovered it had a greater effect
than other molecules we were testing."

Professor Ross Clark, a research team director, says the drug has prevented brain cells dying in animals in which Parkinson's and Huntington's type brain injuries have been induced.

Both are progressive disorders which cause physical disability, and in the case of the inherited disease Huntington's, dementia.

Animal studies on Alzheimer's, which afflicts 38,000 New Zealanders, begin shortly. About 8000 people here have Parkinson's and 3000 MS.

Negotiations are under way with international biotechnology merchant bankers to raise $10 million to fund MS trials for the growth factor, a hormone known as IGF1.

Although Professor Gluckman believes the future hope for MS sufferers may lie in a combination of drugs, "it looks to us as if we can slow the rate of progression of
the disease and maybe stop it altogether."

The drug is also thought to have the potential to treat babies who have suffered oxygen deprivation at birth.

The university has set up NeuronZ - effectively the country's first major New Zealand-
owned, research-based pharmaceutical company - to trial the drugs and ready them for the
world market.

Professor Gluckman estimates the discovery could rocket the company's worth to hundreds of millions of dollars in the next three to five years.

"It is the first time a New Zealand-based company will clinically trial drugs developed in this country. It shows things in little old New Zealand are of international
importance and can be commercialised for New Zealand."

The research started when Professor Gluckman began to investigate what the brain did to limit damage after injury. He discovered it cooled itself and also made protective hormones known as growth factors - but that the process took several days.

"We asked: `What if we do it a bit better than the brain could do itself?'

"Given that many of these diseases can now be diagnosed at a very early stage, the future holds a lot of hope."

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janet paterson - 51 now /41 dx /37 onset - almonte/ontario/canada
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