CR Pharmaceutical, NAMI join forces to fight Alzheimer’s with Pfizer cancer drug

Palbociclib, developed by Pfizer for certain types of advanced breast cancer, was approved for sale in 2015

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Hong Kong’s Nano and Advanced Materials Institute. Photo: innovationhub.hk

Published: 7:00am, 15 Jan 2025

China Resources Pharmaceutical Group (CR Pharmaceutical) has teamed up with the Hong Kong government’s Nano and Advanced Materials Institute (NAMI) to research the repurposing of a cancer drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

Hong Kong-listed CR Pharmaceutical, China’s third-largest distributor of pharmaceutical products, signed a cooperation agreement with NAMI on Tuesday.

The agreement aims to combine NAMI’s expertise on nanotechnology – the manipulation of molecules measured at one billionth of a metre or smaller – with CR Pharmaceutical’s manufacturing expertise, to find a better way to introduce palbociclib into the human body.

The drug, developed by US pharmaceutical giant Pfizer for certain types of advanced breast cancer, was approved for sale in 2015. Pfizer said its patent on the drug is valid until 2027.

Chen Bo, CR Pharmaceutical’s chief scientist, said the company is seeking to repurpose the drug after findings from a preclinical research project at the University of Hong Kong showed a close association between Alzheimer’s disease and Pax6, a protein involved in the proliferation of breast cancer cells. The findings were peer-reviewed and published in Brain, a neurology journal, in 2021.

“This has demonstrated the potential of palbociclib in treating Alzheimer’s disease,” Chen said. The research shows the drug has the potential to improve patients’ mobility and memory, he added.

CR Pharmaceutical’s research on repurposing the drug is under preclinical study, which is necessary to establish safety and efficacy before it can be tested on people suffering from the degenerative brain disease.