AC Immune’s PET tracer shows efficacy detecting brain pathologies

AC Immune (ACIU) announced the presentation of Phase 1 data including the first in vivo images of TDP-43 pathology in the human brain, detected using its positron emission tomography – PET – tracer ACI-19626, at the International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Disease. Initial data from the Phase 1 trial support ACI-19626’s potential to detect pathological TDP-43 in the brains of patients with TDP-43 proteinopathies, enabling a precision medicine approach to multiple neurodegenerative diseases. Specifically, PET scans with ACI-19626 showed that tracer uptake was significantly higher in key regions of the brain in patients with frontotemporal dementia due to mutated C9orf72 than in the brains of healthy subjects. ACI-19626 showed good safety and tolerability, a dosimetry profile within accepted limits, and rapid brain uptake and washout, indicating a PK profile suitable for human brain imaging and potentially pharmacodynamic analysis of therapeutics targeting TDP-43 pathology. This potentially enables precision medicine across multiple neurodegenerative diseases.