AriBio LAB(261780) said on the 21st that the group company Aribio will formally begin joint development of an Alzheimer's disease vaccine. The plan is to discover a new Alzheimer's vaccine candidate by combining Aribio's new drug development experience, which has focused on therapeutic development, with AriBio LAB's vaccine and immune platforms.
The company said the two sides are reviewing a vaccine development strategy that removes key pathological proteins in Alzheimer's disease, such as amyloid and tau, while also modulating neuroinflammation involved in disease progression. They plan to proceed step by step from candidate discovery to efficacy verification.
Aribio recently completed a global phase 3 clinical trial of the oral Alzheimer's disease treatment "AR1001" in 13 countries and is analyzing the topline results. The two sides plan to use the Alzheimer's new drug development experience and global clinical network accumulated in this process for vaccine development.
AriBio LAB has built a vaccine pipeline based on its own immune-enhancing platforms "L-pampo™" and "Lipo-pam™." The shingles vaccine "CVI-VZV-001" recently completed a second administration in phase 2, securing clinical development experience.
With this joint development, Aribio Group's Alzheimer's disease pipeline is expected to expand from therapeutics centered on AR1001 to the vaccine field.
Global pharmaceutical companies have been attempting to develop an Alzheimer's disease vaccine for more than 20 years, but no product has been commercialized yet. Recently, as studies have repeatedly found that the shingles vaccine may reduce the risk of dementia, interest has been growing in the potential to prevent neurodegenerative diseases using vaccines.
Aribio Group official said, "We are pushing ahead with the development of new candidates by combining the Alzheimer's new drug development experience accumulated through the AR1001 global phase 3 trial with AriBio LAB's vaccine and immune platforms," and added, "We will expand the Alzheimer's pipeline with therapeutics and vaccines and continue to secure the group's mid- to long-term growth engines."
Meanwhile, the international academic community has not yet clearly identified how the shingles vaccine prevents dementia and aging. Academia and researchers suspect that preventing shingles reduces neuroinflammation and further strengthens the immune system. Given that the shingles virus lies dormant in nerve cells, it is possible that the vaccine prevents nerve damage and protects cognitive function.
References
Lancet Neurology (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/S1474-4422(25)00455-7
The Journals of Gerontology: Series A (2026), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glag008
Cell (2025), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.11.007
Nature Medicine (2024), DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-024-03201-5