Neurotrope Inc (OTCMKTS:NTRP) Runs, Validates Our Call

Here at Insider Financial, we work hard to uncover potential movers ahead of the wider markets. In the biotech space, there are plenty of these sorts of opportunities, but there's so much noise in the sector that separating the wheat from the chaff can be a tough ask, and that's why our readers let us do the hard work for them.Over the last few days, financial media has been all over a small biotech company called Neurotrope Inc (OTCMKTS:NTRP). Our competitors over at The Street just featured the company a couple of days ago. Neurotrope had just run up to peak at $28 a piece when Feuerstein got a hold of it.Well, as many reading will be aware, we first highlighted this one back at the start of December last year. We followed up on this coverage mid February. At the time of these two releases, Neurotrope went for $8.5 and circa $11 a piece. Both times we said that there was run room left, and that wider markets would soon pick up on this potential (and do so ahead of some near term data), driving the company up further on speculative loading.Both times we were right.The data is almost here, and so we're going to reinforce our argument with a look at the science behind the drug in question, why it's different from the swathes of failed Alzheimer's assets that have come before it, and what we want to see form the numbers as indicative of efficacy.So, the drug. It's called bryostatin and, as mentioned, it's targeting a primary indication of Alzheimer's. As readers might now, this is a holy grail type condition, and one that – as yet – no drug has been able to effectively reverse, or even really halt the progression of. The difference between bryostatin and the majority of those that have come before it is rooted in its target – a protein called PKC. A few things correlate with Alzheimer's severity, two of which are amyloid plaque and Tau (positive correlation), and a third of which is PKC (negative correlation). The vast majority of failed Alzheimer's drugs target the first two, despite their existing no real scientific understanding of how Tau or plaque plays into neurodegeneration. It's essentially a case of scientists running with the fact that they've recognized a correlation between buildup and severity, and hoping for the best.As yet, their hopes have proven ill founded.With bryostatin, Neurotrope is targeting the PKC protein. PKC is known to play a role in synapse formation, and in Alzheimer's patients, PKC protein levels wane, and (and there's nothing linking this outside of theory yet) the company believes this might lead to synapse degradation. Bryostatin, blocks a mutated gene that prevents PKC expression, and activates a gene that promotes PKC expression. The theory is that this will lead to synapse formation, and could potentially reverse the progression of conditions like Alzheimers.There's been a lot of neigh saying surrounding this theory, but as we've said before, this is to be expected. Big names have spent billions on Alzheimer's, and if Neurotrope's drug proves effective, it means said big names have wasted these billions.So what are we looking for?It's a placebo controlled study, with a primary endpoint of based on Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) Scale. This is an industry standard severity scale, and we're looking for a slower increase in severity in the active arm than in the control arm as a minimum benchmark indicator of efficacy. If we see an improvement (i.e.) a decrease in severity in the active arm, hold on to your hats.As ever, there's binary risk on this one, and a lot of it. If things go well, the company will move fast and hard. If the data doesn’t come out as promising, however, the reverse is true. Our thesis to data has been to get in ahead of markets loading up ahead of the data. That trade has now played out. This one is an entirely different animal altogether.We will be updating our subscribers as soon as we know more. For the latest updates on NTRP, sign up below!Disclosure: We have no position in NTRP and have not been compensated for this article.