RCS - Cambridge Cognition - Award of Innovative Medicines Initiative grant

Cambridge Cognition HoldingsAnnouncement

19/03/2020 07:00

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RNS Number : 7050G  Cambridge Cognition Holdings PLC  19 March 2020

19 March 2020

Cambridge Cognition Holdings Plc

("Cambridge Cognition" or the "Company")

 

Cambridge Cognition awarded Innovative Medicines Initiative grant

with partners from industry and academia

 

Cambridge Cognition Holdings plc (AIM: COG), which develops and markets
digital solutions to assess all aspects of cognition, is pleased to announce
it is part of a successful consortium of 46 industry and academic partners who
have collectively been awarded a prestigious Innovative Medicines Initiative
("IMI") grant.  Led by the University of Newcastle, the consortium will work
to identify digital endpoints for fatigue, sleep and activities of daily
living in neurodegenerative disorders and immune-mediated inflammatory
diseases.  Cambridge Cognition will be the computerised cognitive assessment
partner in the consortium and the proportion of the grant received by the
Company is anticipated to be €150,000.

The IMI grant will fund a new European research project to Identify Digital
Endpoints to Assess FAtigue, Sleep and acTivities of daily living (acronym:
"IDEA-FAST") in the following neurodegenerative disorders: Parkinson's disease
and Huntington's disease, and in the following immune-mediated inflammatory
diseases: rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, primary
Sjögren's syndrome, and inflammatory bowel disease; has been launched.

IDEA-FAST is a ground-breaking, €42 million digital health project co-funded
by the European Union (represented by the European Commission) and the
European pharmaceutical industry (represented by EFPIA, the European
Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations) under the Innovative
Medicines Initiative Joint Undertaking programme. It consists of 46 members
from 14 different European countries, including Cambridge Cognition,
pharmaceutical companies, academic and not-for-profit institutions, small- and
medium-sized enterprises and patient organisations aiming to play
complementary roles in achieving the agreed goals.

Fatigue and sleep disturbances are common and disabling symptoms that affect
patients with neurodegenerative disorders and immune-mediated inflammatory
diseases impacting on daily activities; they are the major causes of poor
quality of life and increased healthcare cost. Current questionnaire-based
approaches to measure these symptoms have key limitations preventing them from
being used as reliable endpoints in clinical trials to evaluate the effect of
therapies.

Based on the advancement of wearable and portable digital technology,
IDEA-FAST aims to address these issues by identifying novel digital endpoints
for fatigue, sleep disturbances and disabilities in daily activities. The
final goal is to provide more objective, sensitive, reliable and ecological
measures of the severity and impact of these symptoms in real-world settings.
Such digital endpoints will eventually improve the efficiency of clinical
trials, ultimately reducing the time and cost to bringing new therapies to
patients.

The project, over its planned 66 month duration, will consist of two phases:
an initial pilot study for testing and prioritising several digital devices
and to identify candidate digital endpoints, followed by a large longitudinal
study to validate findings for the most promising digital endpoints. The
project will seek advice from regulatory agencies, including the European
Medicines Agency, for the initial qualification of these digital endpoints.
Patient users' perspective, data privacy, ethical, legal and other regulatory
issues will be taken into consideration at all stages of the project.

Matthew Stork, Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Cognition, said:

"With advances in digital technology, and the widespread adoption of devices,
data on patients' functional outcomes can now be gathered at high-frequency in
an objective and quantifiable manner. This offers huge potential for
identifying and validating digital endpoints in clinical trials, and we are
pleased to be the computerised cognitive assessment partner for this important
collaborative initiative."

 

For further information, contact:

 Cambridge Cognition Holdings PLC             Tel: 012 2381 0700

 Matthew Stork, Chief Executive Officer       press@camcog.com (mailto:press@camcog.com)

 Nick Walters, Chief Financial Officer
 finnCap Ltd (NOMAD and Joint Broker)         Tel: 020 7220 0500

 Geoff Nash / Simon Hicks                     (Corporate Finance)

 Alice Lane / Manasa Patil                    (Corporate Broking)
 Dowgate Capital Limited (Joint Broker)       Tel: 020 3903 7715

 David Poutney / James Serjeant
 IFC Advisory Ltd (Financial PR and IR)       Tel: 020 3934 6630

 Tim Metcalfe / Graham Herring / Zach Cohen

 

Notes to Editors

About Cambridge Cognition

Originally developed at Cambridge University, CANTAB(TM) technology has been
continually enhanced by Cambridge Cognition for over a decade. CANTAB(TM)
technology has been extensively used in research, resulting in over 2,300
peer-reviewed research papers, more than any other computerized cognitive
test. These include nearly three hundred publications in neurodegenerative
inflammatory disorders. The technology includes secure, cloud-based servers
for data storage and study management. The company has an excellent track
record of translating neuroscience research into successful products for
healthcare and clinical research. Cambridge Cognition have extensive
experience in developing scientifically robust and engaging cognitive
assessments on new technology platforms, including wearable devices, mobile
phones and using automated speech recognition.

For the IDEA-FAST project, Cambridge Cognition will contribute digital tools
for the assessment of the cognitive components of fatigue using both the
CANTAB(TM) battery and high-frequency brief assessments. They will also bring
their expertise of cognitive assessments to bear on the data analysis effort.

https://www.cambridgecognition.com/ (https://www.cambridgecognition.com/)

About IDEA-FAST

IDEA-FAST is led by Newcastle University, Great Britain, and University
Hospital Schleswig-Holstein, Kiel, Germany as academic co-leaders, and by
Janssen Pharmaceutica NV and Takeda Pharmaceuticals International as industry
co-leaders.

See https://www.idea-fast.eu/ (https://www.idea-fast.eu/) for more details.

About the Innovative Medicines Initiative and the European Federation of
Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations

IMI is Europe's largest public-private initiative aiming to speed up the
development of better and safer medicines for patients. IMI supports
collaborative research projects and builds networks of industrial and academic
experts in order to boost pharmaceutical innovation in Europe. IMI is a joint
undertaking between the European Commission and EFPIA.

See https://www.imi.europa.eu/ (https://www.imi.europa.eu/) and
https://www.efpia.eu/ (https://www.efpia.eu/) for more details.

Acknowledgement

This project has received funding from the Innovative Medicines Initiative 2
Joint Undertaking (JU) under grant agreement No 853981. The JU receives
support from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation
Programme and EFPIA and Parkinson's Disease Society of the United Kingdom
LBG.

 

 

 

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