Lauren Sciences LLC wins AU$1 million grant award from FightMND

New York, N.Y., April 2, 2019 — Lauren Sciences LLC, the private New York biotechnology company developing transformative V-Smart® Nanomedicines for brain diseases, today announced it was awarded an AU $1M translational grant from FightMND. The FightMND grant will advance Lauren Sciences development of LAUR-301, its novel V-Smart® Nanomedicine for ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or Motor Neuron Disease (MND).

LAUR-301, like all V-Smart® Nanomedicines, encapsulates and delivers a non-brain penetrant therapeutic agent across the blood brain barrier (BBB) and into the central nervous system (CNS) after non-invasive administration. However, LAUR-301 is specially designed for ALS, engineered to specifically target, and selectively release at, degenerating motor neurons in ALS, and customized with GDNF. GDNF is a known non-brain penetrant neurotrophic factor that, when delivered invasively, has shown potential efficacy for ALS.

Lauren Sciences goal is for LAUR-301 to become an FDA-approved drug for ALS. LAUR-301 is expected to be an effective new treatment for all ALS patients that protects against neurodegeneration and induces neuro-restoration and, thus, slows down, or reverses, ALS, whereas no such treatment presently exists.

“Lauren Sciences has LAUR-301 as its priority. In fact, our office is next door to the New York City birthplace of renowned New York Yankee baseball player, Lou Gehrig,” said Susan Rosenbaum, J.D., Founder, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Lauren Sciences. “We commend FightMND for sharing our vision and commitment to LAUR-301. The FightMND award confirms LAUR-301’s success to date, ability to overcome the BBB delivery challenge and value as a potentially life-saving therapeutic for all ALS patients. We acknowledge The ALS Association for its prior support of LAUR-301, and Robert H. Brown, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of Neurology at U. Mass. Medical School, for his ongoing support as our ALS medical advisor.”

“FightMND is dedicated to finding effective treatments and ultimately a cure for MND, also referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease,” said Rebecca Sheean, Ph.D., Research Manager of FightMND. “FightMND support for Lauren Sciences to advance development of LAUR-301 is in keeping with our goals. Lauren Sciences has demonstrated the potential of LAUR-301 to protect motor neurons during ALS, by delivery of GDNF across the BBB and into the CNS following systemic administration. We believe this project, which will investigate the therapeutic benefit of LAUR-301 in an ALS mouse model, is worthy of our grant award. We are excited by its prospects as an important contribution to ALS therapeutic development.”

“LAUR-301 has promise as an effective new treatment for ALS patients,” said Irwin Hollander, Ph.D., VP of R&D at Lauren Sciences. “LAUR-301 will likely be a disease-modifying drug, unlike standard treatments that, in most patients, merely delay disease progression. Lauren Sciences goal is clinical validation and approval of LAUR-301, which will, ultimately, improve ALS patients lives.”

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V-Smart® Nanomedicines address key clinical challenges and critical unmet medical needs to provide high transformational impact on medical treatments and outcomes. V-Smart® Nanomedicines are pre-clinically proven to encapsulate non-brain penetrant therapeutic agents, “macro” target brain and cross blood brain barrier (BBB), “micro” target and deliver to specific sites in brain, selectively release at target sites, be administered systemically, as well as be safe and effective. V-Smart® Nanomedicines uniquely solve problem that most therapeutic agents, including biologicals, with potential to treat or cure brain diseases, do not cross BBB. V-Smart® Nanomedicines will significantly improve lives of patients, as they enable patients to benefit from therapeutic agents whose use is currently unavailable due to inability to cross BBB, poor PK, bioavailability or toxicity issues, required long term invasive treatment, or even where oral administration is preferable.

Lauren Sciences is New York biotechnology company with breakthrough innovation that solves greatest medical challenge in brain disease treatment — non-invasive targeted delivery of non-brain penetrant therapeutic agents to the brain. Lauren Sciences, with breakthrough V-Smart® enabling nanotechnology, applies its innovative V-Smart® targeted drug delivery platform to develop a proprietary pipeline of transformative V-Smart® targeted therapeutics — V-Smart® Nanomedicines — for CNS indications, neurodegenerative and rare/orphan brain diseases, including: Chronic Pain, Parkinson’s, Lou Gehrig’s (ALS or MND), Alzheimer’s, Neuro-HIV, Brain Cancer (GBM), among others. Lauren Sciences achieves success with its expert leadership team, renowned foundation awards, preeminent medical advisors, prestigious collaborations, novel platform, proprietary pipeline, patent portfolio, peer-reviewed journal papers, scientific meeting posters, conference research presentations and industry reports. For more information about Lauren Sciences, visit the website at https://laurensciencesllc.com/.

About ALS (MND)

ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, or MND (Motor Neuron disease), is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects motor neurons (nerve cells) in the brain and the spinal cord. Eventually, people with ALS lose the ability to initiate and control muscle movement, which often leads to total paralysis and death within two to five years of diagnosis. There is no cure and limited life-prolonging treatments for the disease. Based on Australia population studies, more than 2,000 people are currently fighting MND in Australia: 60% male and 40% female; approximately 58% of them are under the age of 65. In 2013, MND accounted for 1 in 200 deaths in Australia. Based on U.S. population studies, a little over 5,600 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with ALS each year. It is estimated that as many as 30,000 Americans have the disease at any given time.

About FightMND

Founded in 2014, FightMND was established in Australia with the purpose of finding effective treatments and ultimately a cure for Motor Neuron Disease (MND), also referred to as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. FightMND, with its vision of a world without MND, is the largest independent funder of MND research in Australia. What FightMND has done since 2014, is be the voice and the guiding star for Australians who want to fight “The Beast”. Integral to this vision is the determination to help facilitate the translation of the growing body of new knowledge about the disease into a cure for MND patients in Australia and abroad. For more information about FightMND, visit the website at https://fightmnd.org.au.