Paul Newhouse, MD: Exploring VU319 in Alzheimer Disease

“The ability to develop a drug for those targets has been very limited.”

Paul Newhouse, MD, the director of the Vanderbilt Center for Cognitive Medicine is working with a group of researchers on the putative cognitive enhancer VU319, a muscarinic M1-positive allosteric modulator being tested for Alzheimer's Disease.

The trial (NCT03220295) is a phase I exploration of a single dose and a dose escalation of the therapy in order to establish the safety and tolerability of single dose, up to the VU319 steady state, in healthy volunteers. Additionally, Newhouse and his group will establish the maximum tolerated dose of single dose and characterize the plasma pharmacokinetics and urinary excretion of VU319 and metabolite after a single dose oral administration.

At the ADDF 19th Annual Conference in Jersey City, New Jersey, NeurologyLive sat with the Jim Turner Chair in Cognitive Disorders at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine to learn more about the molecule and the subsequent trial.

According to Newhouse, the therapy is set apart from the previous therapies by not selectively targeting the receptor itself, but by stimulating it, hopefully avoiding the toxicity issues faced by other therapies.