Promising New Alzheimer’s Drug Featured in Time Magazine Article Titled “The Alzheimer’s Pill: a radical new drug could change old age”

Dr. Frank Longo, and his company, PharmatrophiX, are featured in a Time Magazine article titled “The Alzheimer’s Pill: A radical new drug could change old age” that appears in the February 22, 2016 edition.

The article describes Dr. Longo’s path to developing a drug to treat Alzheimer’s, which currently affects over one-third of Americans over age 85. Nearly 50 million people globally suffer from dementia suspected to be caused by Alzheimer’s. 

According to the article, Dr. Longo’s company, PharmatrophiX, conducted phase I of clinical trials for LM11A-31 and it was deemed safe and caused minimal side effects. The drug is now in phase II testing, and if that phase II trial is successful, LM11A-31 will be one step closer to being approved by the Food and Drug Administration. If successful in human trials, Dr. Longo’s drug would be the first that attacks Alzheimer’s in a different way than other medications currently available to patients affected with the disease. While current drugs attack the amyloid plaques thought to cause Alzheimer’s, LMA11A-31 is designed to keep all brain cells strong and protected against neurological attacks.

PharmatrophiX is led by Chief Executive Officer Anne Longo. It was spun out of the University of North Carolina and the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Longo is the chairman of the Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine and specializes in memory disorders. Smith Anderson partners Merrill Mason, Mikal Shaikh and John Therien have advised Dr. Longo and PharmatrophiX since 2005.