WRD is interested in establishing alliances to develop therapeutics, expand disease biology understanding, and identify biomarkers that impact:
- Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
- Parkinson's Disease (PD)
- Schizophrenia: positive, negative and cognitive deficits
- Cognitive deficits across CNS disorders
- Bipolar Disorder
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder
- Treatment-Resistant Depression
- Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)
- Monogenic Neurodevelopment Disorders
- Huntington's Disease, Addiction, Muscular Disorders, Eating Disorders, ALS, Friedreich's Ataxia, non-AD associated dementias (e.g., vascular dementias), Multiple Sclerosis, Neurobehavioral Disorders (e.g., Tourette syndrome, ADHD)
Specific areas of interest include:
-
Neurodegeneration / Neurological Disease:
- Novel potential symptomatic agents for AD or PD (could include LID)
- Agents affecting microvascular circulation and brain metabolism with validated link to AD
- Imaging agents (e.g., tau, neurotransmitters, neuroinflammation and gliosis)
- Translational biomarkers — preclinical to clinical
- Biological samples (e.g., IPSc) from well defined AD or PD patient populations
- Novel screening models for AD and PD drug development (all phases)
- Therapeutics for sensorineural hearing loss
- Treatments for non-AD dementias (e.g., dementia with Lewy Bodies, Frontal-temporal dementia)
- Novel TRD treatments with ketamine-like profile (speed of onset / duration) without psychological side effects
- Adjunctive anti-depressant treatment
- Adjunctive agent with negative and/or cognitive symptom efficacy in schizophrenia
- PET imaging agent for CNS psychiatry targets
- Novel technologies for monitoring patient behavior, compliance and/or treatment efficacy
- Biological samples (e.g., IPSc) from well defined psychiatric disease patient populations
- Improved clinical or animal models of cognitive domains in psychiatry that are amenable to translation
- Quantitative neuropsychological testing methodologiess
- Agents targeting core symptom domains (social behavior and communication deficits and repetitive and stereotyped behavior), important non-core symptoms: anxiety, aggression, agitation, GI, intellectual disability
- Programs with a strong genetic link to disease etiology and pathophysiology
- Pharmacodynamic neurobehavioral techniques such as eye-tracking/gaze-aversion and sensory stimulus response (e.g., PPI, acoustic-startle); or fMRI and/or MEG imaging
- Biological samples (e.g., IPSc) from well-defined ASD patient populations
- Basic research into Autism onset and disease progression
- ASD or monogenic animal disease models (including NHP) with relevance to human disease and characterized by behavioral, biochemical, genetic, physiologic underpinning
Not actively seeking partnering opportunities in:
- Aß anti-aggregators with unknown MOA
- Aß lowering agents: small molecules (unless in P1 or later) and/or large molecules
- Acetylcholinesterase Inhibitors
- Anti-oxidants
- Dopamine agonists; COMT Inhibitors; MAO Inhibitors
- Stem cell therapy approaches
- D2/5-HT based APDs
- Stand alone mania treatments
- SSRIs, SNRIs
- Corticotrophin Releasing Factor (CRF)
