IMI2 Project IM2PACT: Investigating Mechanisms and Models Predictive of Accessibility of Therapeutics into the brain

A new consortium of  27  international partners from  academia,  industry, and small  and medium enterprises, aims  to  tackle  the  unmet  challenge  of  discovery  and  characterisation  of  blood-brain barrier  targets  and  transport  mechanisms for  brain  delivery  of  therapeutics  to  treat neurodegenerative and metabolic diseases. The blood-brain barrier is a protective layer between the brain’s blood capillaries and the cells that make up brain tissue. This barrier provides a defence against the pathogens and toxins that may be in our blood, allowing very few molecules to pass through. It can also prevent many drugs from passing across into  the  brain,  and  this  presents  a  major  problem  in  treating  neurological  conditions  and metabolic diseases, especially when using antibody therapies. On the other hand, several neurological diseases could originate from a dysfunctional blood-brain barrier. The funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI) to the IM²PACT consortium will allow this public-private partnership, which includes leading international experts in the field, to facilitate the development of drugs to treat neurological disorders by:

• discovering and developing innovative and effective brain transport mechanisms
• establishing and characterising blood-brain barrier models with good predictability in health and disease
• identifying translational  read-outs  closer  to  the  pathogenesis  of  neurodegeneration  and mimicking altered blood-brain barrierunder disease conditions
• in-depth  understanding  of  the  biology  of  the blood-brain  barrier and  characterisation  of various pathophysiological mechanisms across the blood-brain barrier.

IM²PACT  will  foster  the  development  of  disease-modifying  treatment  in  a  setting  of  personalised medicine. For more details visit the web page: http://im2pact.org/about/about-im2pact/