Epilepsy

Neurodegeneration is involved in a variety of Central Nervous System pathologies as neurodegenerative disorders (Alzheimer, Parkinson,…) and epilepsy. HELIOS BIOSCIENCES builds a dynamic model of neurodegeneration. The model will be used for the company research in epilepsy and in partnership for the research of treatments in neurodegenerative disorders.

Epilepsy is a major pathology. It chronically affects 0.5 to 0.8% of the world population (that is to say more than 500,000 patients in France), which is approximately as many patients as schizophrenia or Alzheimer disease. It has significant incidence on health expenditures. This pathology leads to significant handicaps : the most impressive symptoms are generalized seizures ; however, the cognitive and behaviour impairments being associated with certain forms of partial epilepsy very often prevent the subject to carry out normal  schooling or professional life. Symptomatic pharmacological treatments were developed during the past 40 years, allowing to stabilize only more than 50% of epileptic patients. The drug market is well above 2 billion euros per year in the developed countries, and there is a keen demand for more effective and better tolerated treatments. Indeed, in many cases, these daily treatments lead long term to handicapping side-effects. Moreover, about 30% of epilepsies are resistant to any pharmacological treatment. Among the ‘drug-resistant’ epilepsies, Helios BioSciences has decided to initially focus itself on the temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). This form of epilepsy represents more than 50% of the drug-resistant forms.