Renaissance In Precision Neuroscience Expected

This week saw considerable optimism and promise for neuroscience research. The announcement regarding a late-stage Alzheimer’s drug infused excitement into a field that has had disappointments and clinical failures over the years. Scientists and industry experts at the Precision Neuroscience Summit predicted a renaissance in research and development, and that by 2030 there will be system-level innovations to further accelerate breakthroughs ranging from early neurodiagnostics, interventions and artificial intelligence (AI) enabled clinical trials using novel endpoints.

‘We are incredibly fortunate to be living in the first time in history where emerging biology and diagnostic technologies are coming together to allow us to attack the really big unmet needs in mood disorders, genetic neurologic disease and neurodegeneration,’ according to Tim Opler, an economist and partner at boutique investment banking firm Torreya.

An intense area of study has been the use of antibodies to target amyloid plaques in the brain. Biogen and Eisai reported that their Alzheimer’s disease drug lecanemab slowed cognitive decline 27 percent compared with placebo in a clinical trial, which enrolled nearly 1,800 participants with mild cognitive impairment or mild Alzheimer’s. This marked a dramatic reversal of fortune after commercial disappointment and sharply restricted Medicare coverage of another Alzheimer’s antibody drug with similar mechanism earlier this year.

The Precision Neuroscience Summit was held in Boston this week. Sponsored by storied venture capital firm General Catalyst, the summit brought together world leaders across industry, research and clinical medicine to help translate opportunities from labs to patients. This marks a renaissance in brain and behavioral heath progress that promises unprecedented patient impact, according to participants.

Mijail Serruya is the co-director of the Center for Neurorestoration at Thomas Jefferson University. ‘“We now have a tremendous opportunity to integrate available data to develop new diagnostic and therapies for neurologic patients,’ he said.

Venture capitalist Elena Viboch is a partner at General Catalyst (GC) and active neuroscience investor. She says, ‘“we are now able to identify how to overcome the key obstacles of the past, present and future to align on collective action to reach otherwise unattainable goals.’ Venture investors such as GC have poured hundreds of billions into startups and are leveraging perspectives from biopharma, health systems, regulators clinicians and digital innovators to create promising new companies in neuroscience. ‘“We think of our investments as having ability for long term impact on neurologic and psychiatric patients,’ says Viboch.

‘Digital biomarkers are revolutionizing clinical research and the practice of medicine, every bit as impactful as pharmacogenetics or circulating cell-free tumor DNA biomarkers,’ says Dr. John Wagner, Chief Medical Officer at Koneksa Health, and is developing better measurable endpoints for neuropsychiatric clinical research in the form of digital biomarkers.

According to these experts and scientists, despite clear unmet patent needs and vast economic impact, the complex biology of neurologic and psychiatric disease have not progressed rapidly enough until recently. With sufficient action and increasing levels of investment, the industry is experience a rapid shift towards taking a quantum leap for brain health.

Chris Chatham is the Global Head of Innovation, Neuroscience at Genentech. ‘We see significant promise in the emerging era of precision neuroscience. A critical mass is fusing new platforms for data collection, new biomarker modalities, and new computational methods which will render disorders of the brain more tractable than ever before,’ says Dr. Chatham.

Also this week, The Economist reported in its Technology Quarterly that after decades of slow progress, neuroscience is undergoing a renaissance, and new insights are arriving at impressive speed. Advances are bringing innovative approaches to target disease leading to high levels of optimism for developing successful treatments in areas such as epilepsy, migraine, depression as well as memory disorders such as Alzheimer’s.

Jacob Donoghue is CEO of Beacon Biosignals, a venture-backed computational diagnostic start-up that is developing new ways to better monitor neurologic diseases using novel insights from electroencephalogram (EEG) data. He believes that by 2030, that every clinical trial will integrate AI-powered brain activity monitoring. He says, “our tools help enable a paradigm shift toward earlier diagnoses and precision treatments for each patient with neurological and psychiatric disease.”

The reasons behind the neuroscience renaissance come from multiple factors. Current research is taking advantage of innovations that have powered the emergence of precision oncology, which defined a new wave of promising drugs in the past two decades. Additionally, a rapidly expanding selection of targeted therapeutics alongside growing access to brain data from better imaging and detailed genomic data.

‘“The progress we are seeing today is stunning,’ says economist Dr. Opler. ‘Recent breakthroughs in the characterization of neurologic signals using neuronal monitoring, EEG activity, and continuous measurement of movements, have open up amazing opportunities to attack the biggest challenges in neuroscience.’