Allon drug boosts memory in pre-Alzheimer patients

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A nasal spray by Allon Therapeutics Inc significantly improved some measures of memory in patients with mild cognitive impairment -- a precursor to Alzheimer's disease, researchers reported on Monday.

The drug, AL-108, is among the first of a new class of Alzheimer's treatments to target the fibrous tangles in the brain caused by an abnormal build-up of the protein tau.

Dr. Donald Schmechel of Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, and colleagues studied two doses of the drug in 144 patients aged 55-85 at 16 U.S. centers. All had amnestic mild cognitive impairment, a type that is more likely to lead to Alzheimer's disease than other forms of MCI.

After 12 weeks, the group that got the high dose (15 mg twice daily) had a statistically significant improvement over those who got no treatment in a few measures of short-term memory, including visual, verbal and auditory working memory, which often worsens as Alzheimer's advances.

Four weeks after the treatment stopped, the group that got the high dose had a 62.4 percent improvement in some measures of short-term memory compared to the group that got no drug. No serious side effects were seen, the researchers told the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease in Chicago.

There was no improvement in other measures, but Schmechel said he believed the drug is promising.

"There was a trend but it was not statistically significant," Schmechel said in an interview.

But in some tests -- notably a memory game that involved matching and another in which patients had to remember a string of numbers -- there were clear improvements.

Schmechel, who has consulted for Allon but who does not own shares in the company, said he believed the company should continue developing the drug.

(Reporting by Julie Steenhuysen, editing by Maggie Fox and Jackie Frank)