The National Institutes of Health (NIH) on Tuesday awarded a $3.3 million grant to a New Haven-based biotechnology company to further study its oral therapy for treating Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Allyx Therapeutics Inc., based at 555 Long Wharf Drive in New Haven, said it intends to use the Commercial Readiness Pilot funding, provided through NIH’s Small Business Innovation Research Commercial Readiness Pilot program, to support further study of its lead asset, ALX-001, an oral therapy for diseases that cause degeneration of the body’s nervous system.
In May, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved an application from Allyx to conduct clinical research on ALX-001.
The first doses of ALX-001 were recently administered to people with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease as part of two Phase Ib clinical studies, the company said, adding that ALX-001 is ready to move on to Phase 2 clinical development and is not restricted by completion of ongoing or planned studies.
With this latest grant, the ALX-001 program has been awarded more than $23 million in funding following previous grants from NIH, the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program, the Alzheimer’s Association and The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research, among others.
