Avera Pharmaceuticals - Cognitive Impairment

Cognitive Impairment is an integral part of many disease states. It includes a range of conditions where the ability to mentate is singificantly diminished, potentially due to a variety of environmental and biological factors. From Alzheimer’s dementia through Psychotic Disorders, Cognitive Impairment is an area of tremendous unmet need. As such, Avera is interested in both symptomatic and disease-modifying treatments for this range of disorders. Currently Avera is developing AV965 for Cognitive Impairment Associated with Schizophrenia (CIAS) and Alzheimer’s Dementia (AD).

CIAS represents the cognitive-attentional deficits in sensory-gating, working and verbal memory that occur in schizophrenic patients. Patients with schizophrenia typically perform one to two standard deviations below normal on a variety of measures, especially those that assess executive functions, verbal skills, processing speed, and attention. Cognitive impairment in schizophrenia relates directly to socio-vocational functioning, and exerts a greater influence on functional outcome than the presence or severity of the positive or negative symptoms of schizophrenia. While current antipsychotics provide some measure of efficacy in treating the positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, there are no approved therapies to improve cognitive functioning in this population. The development of effective cognitive enhancing agents will be essential to facilitate psychosocial rehabilitation in schizophrenia. Such a product could substantially improve productivity and quality of life in this patient population.

AD is a progressive, neurodegenerative disorder characterized by significant loss of function in more than one cognitive domain (e.g., memory impairment; language disturbance; visual-spatial disturbances; difficulties with organization or judgment) and often accompanied by changes in behavior or personality. AD is the most common cause of dementia, predominately occurring in people aged 65 or older.