Disorders of the Central Nervous System - such as schizophrenia, Alzheimer's disease, Fragile X Syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorders - affect millions of people. These disorders can be devastating for the sufferers, as well as their families and caregivers. Unfortunately, at this time treatments simply don't exist, or at best offer only symptom management.
Recent discoveries in the laboratories of Nobel Laureate and Afraxis co-founder Dr. Susumu Tonegawa, and other Afraxis collaborators, linking disorders of the central nervous system to underlying defects in dendritic spine function is providing new opportunities to treat the millions of patients afflicted by these diseases. Dendritic spines constitute the receptive side of a neural synapse and their dysfunction degrades synaptic function leading to deficits in learning, cognition and behavior.
Afraxis is leveraging these observations by developing a high content technology platform to evaluate dendritic spine and synapse function that provides detailed insight into the pharmacological activity of novel treatments. Afraxis is using this platform to optimize the biological activity of its compounds and build a portfolio of its own drug programs.
Afraxis' lead program targets PAK, a key regulator of dendritic spine biology that is intended to modify the disease mechanism itself - providing not a cure, but a treatment designed to produce beneficial change at both the cellular, functional and behavioral levels. Read more.
Management Team