Today we’d like to introduce you to Rene Anand.
Rene, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I have spent most of my professional life as a professor and a scientific investigator in a medical school setting. While the experience was exciting exploring basic science questions building on established science, it lacked opportunity to do high-risk research for worthy medical applications in the real world. I founded Neurxstem Inc. precisely to engage in such interdisciplinary research in precision brain medicine after inventing stem cell-derived human brain models that were highly advanced, replicable, and also showed construct validity for human brain diseases. A US patent was obtained for this invention. So far, our track record shows that Neurxstem has accomplished some major milestones towards such applied medicine already. The underlying philosophy of Neurxstem is “make the impossible plausible and then possible’ through innovation)!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Since the formation of Neurxstem, we have obtained funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIDA) for our work on opioid use disorders and from the Department of Defense (Airforce) for or work on PTSD.
The challenges now are to get private funding to take our derisked R&D science to the clinics via clinical trials. Our lead portfolio is Alzheimer’s for which we now have novel drugs.
We’ve been impressed with Neurxstem Inc., but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Neurxstem Inc. is an avant-garde Predictive and Precision Genomic Medicine Company. It has made a novel, first-in-class Neural Organoid Platform™ that delivers the world’s first-in-class and most advanced synthetic mimic of the human central nervous system ‘(CNS)-in-a-dish.’ This platform can help:
• Diagnose brain disorders and diseases early using newly discovered predictive biomarkers
• Discover novel upstream therapeutic targets using newly discovered predictive biomarker
• Perform drug toxicity, safety, and efficacy (TSE) testing with an advanced human platform
Our Neural Organoid Platform™ has been issued a US patent in 2022, out-competing all such models in the US an EU.
Breakthrough human stem cell technology has leapfrogged over the research models of the past to the models of the future. While staggering sums of money have been spent on finding effective treatments for debilitating brain diseases, significant progress has remained elusive. Drugs that are effective in mice against a host of brain diseases, including autism, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, or brain cancer, tragically perform poorly in human patients, where it matters most for the ultimate stakeholder.
Using these human models, Neurxstem has defined marketable products and proprietary “big data” portfolios grounded in comprehensive predictive biomarkers, including early ones, for Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, and their comorbidities as well as Cancer.
Neurxstem is developing novel proprietary products, clinical tests, and formulations for R&D goals.
For Alzheimer’s disease (AD), Neurxstem is perfecting a clinical test to predict as early as at birth whether or not someone is susceptible to Alzheimer’s disease, with 90% accuracy. More importantly, the clinical test also predicts susceptibility to environmental agents and nutritional deficiencies that correlate with AD. This clinical test leverages proprietary process technologies and derived patented analytical data. We are a few months away from formally seeking FDA approval for this clinical test for AD.
Neurxstem has filed a patent application on the NNOP™ process and its utilities in multiple countries, and it was issued in the US. Additional utility patents were filed in 2018 to secure additional intellectual property rights for Alzheimer’s, autism, Parkinson’s, cancer, Opioid addiction, and their comorbidities.
Alright, so before we go, can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you, or support you?
We are working with many major collaborative efforts both in the US and globally.
We are now officially a ‘spoke’ in ARPA-H, a revolutionary federal agency modeled after DARPA.
Inspiring beginnings and new hope that innovation will thrive with this federal agency, much like it did like their parent defense agency, DARPA!
We are also working with Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative. DAC is uniting leading organizations worldwide to build an innovation ecosystem that will accelerate breakthroughs, develop and scale promising solutions, and equip every healthcare system to end Alzheimer’s disease everywhere. https://www.davosalzheimerscollaborative.org/
To further engage with stakeholders in the Alzheimer’s (AD) field, I was invited as an innovator in the field of AD therapeutics and attended the Lausanne X conference in Switzerland and participated the Digital Cognitive Assessment workshop. I am now a member of their DCA advisory team.
This organization is a global one with a sole objective of addressing the health and economic threat to society posed globally by AD. It consists of patients, policymakers from many countries, regulatory agencies from Japan and the Netherlands, biotech companies, pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and venture capitalists.
We are always seeking private and State agencies that would like to partner with us financially to accelerate our efforts of many debilitating brain diseases to the clinics.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://neurxstem.com/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rene-anand-b13028227/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhrWHKcpjc4&t=344s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwZ7saUmbkw
Image Credits
Autism Parenting Magazine
