Neurology

Alzheimer's/Cognition, Depression, Anxiety, Stress, Parkinson's Disease, Pain, Psychosis/Schizophrenia, Sleep/Circadian Rhythm
Central nervous system, or CNS, disorders encompass a broad array of disease areas, including depression, Alzheimer's disease, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), and Parkinson's disease. According to the National Institutes of Health, depression affects approximately 19 million American adults in any given one-year period. Alzheimer's Disease affects 4.5 million Americans. The treatments currently available for neurological diseases are among the most frequently prescribed drugs in the United States, yet often have limited efficacy or significant side effects for many patients. We are working with Bristol-Myers Squibb to discover and develop novel small molecule drugs in the neuroscience field.

LX6171 for Cognitive Disorders
LX6171 is an orally-delivered small molecule compound for the potential treatment of disorders characterized by cognitive impairment, such as Alzheimer's disease, schizophrenia or vascular dementia. We concluded a Phase 1b clinical trial for LX6171 in July 2007 in which LX6171 was well-tolerated and showed excellent systemic exposure. We expect to receive full audited results of our Phase 1 trials for LX6171 in the third quarter of 2007 and anticipate filing with European regulatory authorities for approval of our Phase 2 plans in the fourth quarter. Pending regulatory approval, we plan to initiate Phase 2 clinical trials in the first quarter of 2008. LX6171 was internally generated by our medicinal chemists, and its target was identified as part of our Genome5000 program as a selective and potent inhibitor of a membrane protein that is expressed exclusively in the central nervous system. In preclinical studies, LX6171 demonstrated improved learning and memory in mice.