最近生物技术公司Neurotrope公司公布了本年度公司的第三份合作协议。根据协议公司将与纽约市的西奈山伊坎医学院（Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai）合作进行草台虫素的研究，Neurotrope公司计划利用这种药物活性成分开发出治疗C型尼曼匹克症的药物。C型尼曼皮克氏病是一种主要在儿童群体中发病的溶酶体贮积症，这种疾病会导致神经退行性问题，恶化后会导致患者死亡。目前市面上尚没有针对这一罕见病的有效疗法。

此次Neurotrope公司希望开发的草台虫素分离自名为Bugula neritina的海洋微生物，研究发现这种物质对一系列目前难以治愈的神经退行性疾病都有一定疗效，而其类似物也被广泛应用于癌症的治疗中。

此次合作也是Neurotrope公司与美国研究机构的第三个合作协议，去年公司曾与西弗吉尼亚大学的布兰切特-洛克菲勒神经科学研究中心签订合作协议，今年五月份公司还与斯坦福大学建立合作关系。

详细英文报道：

Startup Neurotrope Bioscience has signed on to its second big academic collaboration since the start of the year. Its first was with Stanford University back in May; now it's teaming up with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City to further develop its bryostatins for the treatment of Niemann-Pick disease type C (NPC), a rare disease that mostly affects children.

Classified by the FDA as an orphan disease, NPC is a type of inherited metabolic disorder known as a lysosomal storage disease. There is no cure for NPC, which causes progressive neurological problems that often result in death in affected children.

The company's Bryostatin-1 is a natural product derived from a marine microorganism called Bugula neritina, obtained by isolating it from biomass harvested from the ocean. Neurotrope is investigating the compound in a range of difficult-to-treat neurological and neurodegenerative diseases. But analogs of the compound--called bryologs--are also being studied as potential anticancer drugs and as memory-enhancing agents in other laboratories.

The license will provide the Plantation, FL-based drug developer with a 7-year period of U.S. marketing exclusivity if a drug is produced from the collaboration. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

This is Neurotrope's third academic partnership to date. Last year, the company inked a deal with the Blanchette Rockefeller Neurosciences Institute at West Virginia University.

The license also covers other diseases and disorders relying on activation of PKC epsilon, an enzyme that plays a role in the health of certain cells that has been connected to NPC.