Spanish Esteve and other three laboratories form a partnership
23rd February, 2005

Esteve laboratories and other three installed Spanish biomedical companies in the Scientific Park of Barcelona (Advancell, Crystax and Oryzon Genomics) have formed a partnership for the development of a drug against the denominated dementia with Lewy Bodies (DBL), the more frequent senile cause after Alzheimer. The initial investment of the project will be of 0.6 million euros in three years. The Catalan Government will contribute with 30% of this budget, within the aids and incentives for research destined to facilitate the grouping of companies in programs of great spread. The biomedical project, named Neurocure, was born with the identification for the first time of a target protein directly involved in the development of the DBL. The collaboration between the four Spanish laboratories is of the first kind that occurs between companies installed in the Scientific Park. The advisor of Industry of the Catalan Government, Josep Maria Rañé, affirmed yesterday that this is one of the first fruits of collaboration between company, university and administration, in projects that need a great volume of investment. In this sense, the possible development of a drug could take 15 years. The dementia with Lewy Bodies has an incidence of 26 annual cases by each 100,000 inhabitants. Between the age of 80 and 84 years old it appears in an average of 93 cases by each 100,000 people. At the moment, the treatment and the therapy is very limited.

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