Brain Illness Drug Market Largely Shunned by Investors

The second fastest way to clear a room of venture capitalists and other investors is to announce a bomb threat or yell "fire." But the quickest way is to tell them you are a drug developer targeting traumatic brain injury (TBI) or stroke, said Harry Tracy, who runs Cardiff, Calif.-based NI Re-search, a consulting and research firm focused on the neurological and psychiatric therapeutics industry. In recent years, investors in general have shied away from companies developing therapies for brain injuries and illnesses, except for Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, Tracy said. While the Alzheimer's development area in particular is "a huge potential market" that would meet a "huge social need," it "sucks up a lot of the money," leaving other brain conditions, such as TBI and Huntington's disease, woefully underfunded, he... [read full story]