From footy to neuroscience: CogState branches out

A Melbourne company, whose test to measure cognitive abilities counts AFL teams among its customers, is branching out into biotech to develop neuroscience therapeutics.

CogState focuses on the development of diagnostics and therapeutics for mild cognitive impairment (MCI). The company has its basis in a simple computerised cognitive performance test developed by Prof David Darby from the University of Melbourne and Prof Paul Maruff from the Mental Health Research Institute and LaTrobe University.

The test takes about 15 minutes, and has found several uses in measuring brain functions' return to normal in athletes who have received a concussion, and in testing pharmaceutical drug-related cognitive impairment.

Several pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, are already using the test. And in the sports world, all 10 Melbourne-based Australian Football league teams, as well as a number of high-profile international rugby teams and several other organisations around the world, use the test to help make decisions about player fitness after head injuries.

But CogState CEO Dr Peter Bick said that the real interest for the company lies in diseases, which affect cognitive function, like Alzheimer's disease and dementia.

He noted that by 85 years of age, 50 per cent of people have developed Alzheimer's, but the impairment of cognitive abilities begins far earlier than that.

"We've got data on normal ageing patients that shows they are starting to show a decline in cognitive ability," he said. "If you detect it really early, can you do something about it?"

Currently, drugs for Alzheimer's are targeted at patients with advanced disease, but Bick said evidence was mounting that showed Alzheimer's drugs might be effective in preventing or slowing the course of the disease.

CogState wants to take advantage of its test and use a two-pronged approach. The test is unique in that it allows repeated measurements to be taken, so that decline over a period of time can be detected and monitored. Bick sees the test as perhaps becoming an annual event for ageing people.

Hand in hand with this, the company has set up a division to develop promising drugs to treat MCI and Alzheimer's disease. "We realise the synergy in developing our own drugs," Bick said.

To this end, CogState is busy developing a business plan to allow the company to in-license promising candidates, take them through pre-clinical and early-stage clinical trials, and then out-license them for further commercialisation.

Bick, who has worked for contract research organisation Quintiles as well as for a venture capital firm in the US, and was formerly CEO of Israeli medical devices company Influence, noted that early-phase development of drugs was when the most value could be added.

The company has recently licensed a series of small molecule drugs with agonist activity for brain angiotensin receptors from a Japanese biopharmaceutical company, which target the hippocampus and appear to improve learning and memory in rats.

Bick said that pre-clinical trials were already underway in Melbourne, and the company hoped to move into clinical trials in 12-18 months.

In addition, the company is evaluating six additional drugs for their potential. By the end of next year, when the company hopes to file for listing on the ASX, the company hopes to have two drugs in development.

In the next 12 months of operations, the company also expects to have revenues in excess of $1 million from sales of the CogState and CogSport tests.

To date CogState has been backed by Rothschild Bioscience and a consortium of private investment funds led by Melbourne businessman Martyn Myer, and Bick said the company was about to go after a larger round of private financing.

But the company plans to stay small, outsourcing its research and manufacturing its drugs in India.

"We have the vision of being a biotechnology company," said Bick.