18 July 2006
Munich, Germany – Affectis Pharmaceuticals AG, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel drugs against depression and schizophrenia, announced today that it has identified a genetic variation associated with unipolar disorder (severe depression). (1) As the variation may have consequences for the functioning of a receptor protein in the brain, it constitutes a promising target for the development of novel anti-depressants. In a previous paper published in May this year Affectis already had demonstrated that the variant is strongly associated with bipolar affective disorders. (2) According to WHO figures, in 2002 worldwide 154 million people suffered from unipolar disorder, while about 28 million suffered from bipolar affective disorders.
In the study, the researchers investigated 29 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) of the P2RX7 gene in a sample of 1000 German Caucasians suffering from recurrent major depressive disorder (MDD) and in 1029 healthy individuals from the same population. SNPs are DNA sequence variations that occur when a single nucleotide (A, T, C, or G) in the genome sequence is altered. The researchers found a significant association (p=0.0019) between MDD and an SNP codenamed rs2230912, which previously also had been found to be associated with bipolar affective disorders in another population.
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 07-2006 Affectis P2RX7 paper.pdf | 27 Kb |
15 May 2006
Munich, Germany – Affectis Pharmaceuticals AG, a biopharmaceutical company developing novel drugs against depression and schizophrenia, announced today the identification of a gene strongly associated with bipolar affective disorders. The gene encodes for a receptor protein suggesting that it may constitute a promising target in bipolar disorders such as mania and depression. The company already has identified lead compounds, which it hopes to take into preclinical development later this year.
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| 2006-05 Affectis - Paper NB E final.pdf | 21 Kb |
02 November 2005
Munich, Germany -- Affectis Pharmaceuticals AG and Organon, the human healthcare business unit of Akzo Nobel, have entered into a collaboration by which Affectis will apply its pioneering target validation technology and its exclusive preclinical models for the validation of Organon’s gene targets involved in depression and anxiety.
Today, one of the major challenges in developing optimised drugs against affective disorders is the limited availability of suitable preclinical models and sufficient expertise in selecting promising targets and leads as well as their preclinical development. Affectis' team has more than 10 years experience in developing, performing and interpreting behavioural assays and preclinical models of diseases such as depression and anxiety.
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| 2005-11 Affectis - Organon E.pdf | 24 Kb |
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