AAIC Poster Presentation, July 23, 2018

"Apabetalone (An Epigenetic BET-Inhibitor Small Molecule): A Substudy Evaluating Effects on Cognition in Diabetes Patients with Cardiovascular Disease"

I look forward to seeing this poster for any additional details of the cognition sub-study design and baseline data. This one is a poster presentation, but the one listed below for the cognition sub-study design and basline data at September's CTAD is an oral presentation that will likely have more detail than can be put in a poster.

CTAD-Asia Oral Communication, Sept 1, 2018

"Cognitive evaluation of treatment effects of the bromodomain and extra terminal domain inhibitor apabetalone: Design and baseline data of the cognition substudy of the BETonMACE Phase 3 cardiovascular trial." 

The presentation will highlight the design and baseline characteristics of a prespecified substudy of cognition in elderly patients in BETonMACE. This is analagous to what Dr. Zadeh presented at ERA-EDTA for the CKD sub-study earlier this year. Nice to know that cognition, assessed by the Montreal Cognition Assessment (MoCA), is being done at baseline, one-year, two-year and at end of study. The MoCA test will be done on all patients 70 and over in BETonMACE (~18% of patients). In previous company correspondence, they noted that the cognition subgroup will be those with MoCA < 25 (~275 patients). I made a few comments about this sub-study in relation to the recent BAN2401 Phase 2 trial by Biogen/Eisai in the last two paragraphs of a recent post here.

CTAD-Asia Poster Presentation, Sept 1, 2018

"Effect of the BET Protein Inhibitor Apabetalone on Serum Markers of Potential Importance for Cognitive Decline in Cardiovascular Disease Patients"

I am very excited about this poster. Recall that previous proteomic analyses that used the SomaScan technology revealed very interesting changes related to kidney disease, complement pathway, inflammation, etc. They will do proteomic analysis of ASSURE trial samples (6 month treatment) for markers related to cognitive decline and neurodegeneration. "The poster will highlight data on proteins that are linked to cognitive decline and neurodegenerative disease and may contribute to neuroplasticity, blood-brain barrier integrity and mitochondrial function." Some new pathways mentioned there that we haven't heard Resverlogix comment on before. Aside from the company reporting on amyloid-beta 40 levels in the blood from analysis of the 12-week long ASSERT trial, we haven't heard anything that I can recall about cognitive decline/neurodegeneration specific effects of apabetalone from any of the previous clinical trials.