We are pioneering beyond the brain to pinpoint and treat validated drivers of neurodegenerative diseases.
Our goal is to deliver effective, safe oral therapeutics that can help preserve patient functionality and independence, ultimately transforming long-term outcomes.
Discovery at the Source of Disease
While neurodegenerative diseases ultimately manifest in the brain, research has uncovered catalyzing events across the peripheral nervous system that contribute to disease onset and progression.
Mining these connections for therapeutic innovation requires a unique combination of unorthodox thinking and integrated expertise to discover, validate, and drug these targets.
Our multidisciplinary team at Vertero is generating novel insights from disparate data sources that enable us to move beyond correlations and isolate truly causative peripheral catalysts that can be targeted with oral therapeutics to effectively address these diseases.
Together with our scientific collaborators, we are developing differentiated small molecules that can disrupt the course of these diseases directly at their source.
A Fresh Look at Parkinson’s Disease
Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s disease (PD) impart a tremendous burden, yet therapies available today primarily help manage motor symptoms, and none offer disease modification or a functional cure.
To make real progress, we are moving beyond the brain to target upstream catalysts that fuel the development and progression of these diseases.
In recent years, research has defined a clear link between gut symptoms and PD. Many individuals diagnosed with PD have reported gastrointestinal symptoms such as slow motility long before they received a PD diagnosis. And a wide range of studies continues to validate common alterations in the gut microbiome that are specific to the PD population.
With a deep understanding of this gut-brain interplay, our groundbreaking research has pinpointed an upstream target known as CsgA:
- Microbial protein expressed when bacteria bind to the gut wall.
- Present in more than 50% of PD patients.
- Shown to drive protein aggregation and propagation to the brain and fuel inflammation, contributing to the development and progression of PD.
Vertero has designed a localized, oral small molecule specifically for PD patients with confirmed CsgA in the gut. By intervening at this peripheral genesis point for PD, we aim to slow disease progression, delay the start of current symptom management treatment, and preserve patients’ quality of life for longer.
Slide to see how VT-5006 affects the mechanisms driving PD.
Future
This approach has strong potential to address peripheral sources of other challenging neurodegenerative diseases such as Lewy body dementia and Alzheimer’s disease.