Athira

Athira Pharma is a drug development company dedicated to improving human health by developing new therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. Formerly known as M3 Biotechnology, it was renamed Athira Pharma in April 2019. Athira Pharma's innovative approach focuses on transforming brain degeneration into regeneration by re-establishing lost connections and restoring lost functions. The company plans to advance its lead candidate drug, NDX-1017, into Phase II/III clinical trials. In December 2019, the company reported positive data from the Phase Ia/b trial of the drug involving 88 healthy subjects and patients with Alzheimer's disease. The trial evaluated quantitative electroencephalography (qEEG) as a biomarker for brain circuit activity and used event-related potentials (ERP) as a method to test working memory and cognitive processes. The drug demonstrated dose-dependent and consistent changes in brain activity across all treated patients.