Baxter secures funding for Alzheimer's test

Baxter International Inc. plans to start final-stage human tests next year of the immune disorder treatment Gammagard Liquid for Alzheimer's disease.

Deerfield-based Baxter, the world's biggest maker of blood-disease treatments, will receive funding from the U.S. National Institutes of Health for the trial in the last of the three phases generally required for approval, the company said today in a statement. The study will involve 35 medical centers and cost about $30 million, researchers said.

Gammagard may reverse accumulations in the brain of a protein called beta amyloid, linked to irreversible cognitive decline in Alzheimer's patients, scientists say. The disease, affecting 4.5 million Americans, eventually incapacitates victims.

If approved, Gammagard would be the first antibody replacement therapy for Alzheimer's, said Benjamin Andrew of William Blair & Co. in Chicago.

"Getting the label indication would routinize the prescribing for these patients," Andrew said in a telephone interview. "If you can slow the progression of the disease or even stop it, that would be huge."

Gammagard, derived from donated human blood plasma, replaces antibodies for people whose immune systems can't protect them from infections. The therapy, known as intravenous immunoglobulin treatment, has been used safely for more than three decades for treatment of primary immune deficiency disease, a shutdown of the immune system, researchers say.