Cognition Therapeutics, Inc. announced that Christoper van Dyck, M.D., the director of the Yale Alzheimer's Disease Research Unit and the Yale Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, is presenting the Phase 2 study design of the company?s ongoing START study in an oral late-breaking session at Clinical Trials on Alzheimer?s Disease (CTAD) conference. The START Study is assessing once-daily oral CT1812 or placebo in 540 individuals with early Alzheimer?s disease for 18 months of treatment. Cognition Therapeutics is conducting the study in collaboration with the Alzheimer's Clinical Trials Consortium (ACTC) with major grant support from the National Institute of Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health.

Published data points to a role for the sigma-2 (s-2) receptor in regulating key ?housekeeping? processes such as autophagy that are impaired in Alzheimer?s and other neurodegenerative diseases. By binding to the s-2 receptor on neurons, CT1812 may rescue these processes and protect neurons from further damage.

The company collected the following clinical data, which it believe support the potential benefit that CT1812 may exert on synapse function and overall brain health: target engagement data demonstrated in the SNAP study; preliminary evidence of cognitive impact seen in the first cohort of patients in the SHINE study; reduced hippocampal atrophy (loss of brain matter) observed via volumetric MRI in the SPARC study; and favorable impact on brainwave patterns as measured via quantitative electroencephalogram in the Phase 2 SEQUEL study. The tolerability profile of CT1812 has been consistent throughout clinical development with mild-to-moderate adverse events and no treatment-related serious adverse events reported. The START study is actively underway with screening of adults with early Alzheimer?s disease at multiple clinical sites, including the University of Kentucky Sanders-Brown Center on Aging (SBCoA), the Butler Hospital Memory and Aging Program (BHMAP), and Wake Forest University Health Sciences.

Ultimately, it expects that approximately 50 sites in North America, including premier institutions in the ACTC network, will be activated.