The California-based Institute for Molecular Medicine (IMM) and Nuravax announced that the first four participants have been dosed in the Phase I TAURUS-1980 trial of AV-1980R, an investigational tau-targeting vaccine intended to prevent or delay Alzheimer's disease in people with evidence of brain amyloid pathology but no cognitive symptoms.
The randomized, placebo-controlled TAURUS-1980 study will enroll up to 48 cognitively unimpaired adults aged 65–80 to evaluate safety, tolerability, and immune responses to AV-1980R. Developed using IMM's MultiTEP platform, the recombinant protein vaccine is designed to stimulate antibody responses against pathological tau, a protein associated with neurodegeneration in Alzheimer's disease. The trial will also explore changes in Alzheimer's biomarkers, including tau PET imaging.
The program represents an early-stage effort to intervene before the onset of clinical symptoms, extending Alzheimer's drug development beyond the treatment of established disease. Other preventive approaches include the Phase III AHEAD 3-45 program, which is evaluating Eisai's anti-amyloid antibody lecanemab in cognitively unimpaired individuals with evidence of amyloid accumulation. Unlike lecanemab, which directly targets amyloid, AV-1980R is designed to induce an immune response against tau.
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