One more step towards Alzheimer’s disease breakthrough
Australian Biotech Solagran (ASX: SLA) has announced that trials completed recently at Swinburne University’s Brain Sciences Institute have shown that three month’s treatment with its drug Ropren® led to a minimum 15% improvement in memory in healthy elderly people.
The double blind, placebo controlled trial was conducted by a team led by Professor Con Stough, the director of Swinburne’s Brain Sciences Institute. It involved just under 100 participants aged between 60 and 85.
The results are consistent with human trials conducted in Russia with Alzheimer’s patients in 2005 and with chronic alcoholics earlier this year. The Russian Alzheimer’s trial was conducted at the Skvortsova-Stepanova Psychiatric Hospital in St Petersburg.
Ropren is a natural substance containing polyprenols that Solagran obtains from green conifer needles – using a patented extraction technology developed at the St Petersburg Forest Technical Academy. It completed phased clinical trials as a treatment for chronic liver disease in 2004.