Alkahest – AKST4290 Parkinson's Disease

Alkahest, a Grifols company, was founded in San Carlos, California. Steven Braithwaite is both CEO and CSO. Chronokines are proteins that increase or decrease with age. Alkahest, through proteome decoding methods is developing clinical candidates that increase or decrease the levels of key circulating chronokines to either promote innate and natural restorative biological processes or inhibit pathological degenerative processes. These therapeutics include both traditional pharmaceutical modalities as well as highly selected and refined plasma fractions and other methods for antagonizing or supplementing the most biologically active chronokines. Current clinical trials are testing our therapeutic approaches for a range of age-related medical conditions. Eotaxin is an immunomodulatory chemokine that is increased in normal aging as well as multiple diseases of aging. AKST4290 is an inhibitor against CCR3, the natural receptor for eotaxin. AKST4290 is an orally effective drug designed to block eotaxin from binding to its G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) CCR3. CCR3 plays an important modulatory role in inflammation, immune cell recruitment, and neovascularization. Eotaxin is an immunomodulatory chemokine that is increased in normal aging as well as multiple diseases of aging. Alkahest has initiated a Phase 2 trial supported in part by the Michael J. Fox Foundation studying the effects of AKST4290 in patients with Parkinson’s disease, a devastating neuromuscular disorder affecting more than seven million people worldwide.