Misplacing a set of keys or momentarily forgetting a friend’s name may be embarrassing, but it is usually perfectly normal. For some people, however, memory loss is a symptom of something far more serious: Alzheimer’s disease.

Alzheimer’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder affecting approximately 8 million Europeans and Americans and the number is expected to rise dramatically with an increasing elderly population. With symptoms ranging from forgetfulness to language difficulties, from changes in mood and personality to loss of insight culminating in the destruction of brain cells, this devastating condition is one of the leading causes of death in the western world.

But this is only the beginning. As today’s “baby boomers” reach the age of highest risk, with the disease generally starting at 65 years of age and increasing in frequency thereafter, it is expected that the number of Alzheimer’s disease patients will soon double, triggering a massive health-care crisis. It is estimated that Alzheimer’s disease already costs American society $180 billion per year.

Until now, no cure or disease-modifying therapy has been developed for Alzheimer’s disease. Drugs currently available for the treatment of the disease appear to affect symptoms of the disease, rather than the underlying pathogenesis. There is an urgent need to rethink the goals of Alzheimer’s disease treatment and to create drugs that will not only alleviate cognitive problems associated with the malady’s early stages, but more importantly, slow progression and even prevent the disease altogether. Mindset is poised to meet the therapeutic challenge created by the steadily rising prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological disorders.

Mindset’s approach rests on proprietary biopharmaceutical products and technologies designed to make a fundamental impact on the underlying molecular pathology of Alzheimer’s disease, thus affecting the disease itself. This leading approach has been made possible due to the cutting edge research of the internationally leading neuroscientists and clinical neurologists who direct Mindset’s discovery and development programs.

Recent advances have identified the chief culprits in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis, namely amyloid and oxidative stress, and signaled the way to design affective therapies.

Amyloid plaques are the major hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease and are found in many regions of the brain, particularly those regions associated with learning and memory. Amyloid is the major toxic substance killing nerve cells in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease victims. Its importance as a target for therapy has long been supported and recently reinforced by the emergence of genetically modified transgenic animal models that reproduce essential features of Alzheimer’s disease pathology. MindGenix’s transgenic models offer a unique platform for drug discovery in Alzheimer’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases associated with cognitive impairment.

Oxidative stress, produced by free radicals, is now recognized to be a central mechanism in the pathogenesis of major disorders. Many clinical conditions including, inflammatory and infectious diseases, Alzheimer’s, motor neuron and other neurodegenerative diseases, have now been linked to free radical damage.

The reduction of amyloid burden in the brain and the prevention of oxidative stress are key aims in Mindset’s strategy to develop disease modifying therapies for Alzheimer’s disease. Amyloid is targeted directly by preventing the formation of the toxin on the one hand, as well as promoting its clearance out of the brain. In addition, Mindset’s therapies aim to block the oxidative stress causes by the amyloid.

Thus, with therapeutic programs designed to attack the major underlying causes of Alzheimer’s disease, Mindset is on the road to creating a new era in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease in which the pain and suffering of Alzheimer’s patients and their families can be both managed and prevented.