Saegis Pharmaceuticals is a bright star among the dozens of private cogniceutical companies. Last week I had a chance to sit down with CEO Rodney Pearlman to discuss their unique approach to developing "medicines that protect and enhance the function of the human mind."

Saegis is a cogniceutical pioneer focused on age-related cognitive impairment disorders like Alzheimer's Disease, Mild Cognitive Impairment, as well as, psychiatric and trauma related cognitive impairment induced by schizophrenia and coronary artery bypass surgery. Cogniceuticals are neuropharmaceuticals that target the mental processes responsible for perception, attention, learning, memory, thought, and communication (see NIMH definition of cognition).

Unlike many neuroceutical companies whose research emphasizes specific neurochemical pathways that have been correlated to memory impairment, Saegis uses a high-throughput behaviorial model called Parallax to identify and validate preclinical compounds that improve memory. Instead of trying to discover molecules that can influence a specific molecular pathway which has shown some correlation to cognition, but may also impact emotional and sensory systems, the Saegis "phenotypic" approach looks for novel compounds that result in improved cognitive abilities as measured by overall behavioral improvement in memory related tasks after taking different cogniceuticals.

This pure focus on cognition should allow Saegis to compete effectively in almost every segment of the cogniceutical market. Saegis is nearing Phase II clinical trials this year in the two fastest growing neuroceutical markets, Alzheimer's Disease and Schizophrenia, but will likely attack other markets like OCD in the coming years as complex mental disorders are differentiated further. For example, "While currently marketed drugs are effective in treating the psychotic aspects of schizophrenia, Cognitive Impairment Associated with Schizophrenia (CIAS) is rapidly becoming recognized as an untreated area for these patients."

By differentiating the cognitive, emotion and sensory modalities associated with complex mental disorders, Saegis is recognizing cutting edge research that is emphasizing "the need to rethink how we categorize psychiatric disorders." As Dr. Sanjaya Saxena, who has led several recent brain imaging studies on OCD, "Diagnosis and treatment should be driven by biology rather than symptoms."

For this reason we should see an increasing trend towards the research and development of cogniceuticals, emoticeuticals and sensoceuticals that will be used in combination to treat complex mental disorders in the coming years.

While there is great hope for emerging cogniceutical treatments, the ever "sagacious" Rodney Pearlman reminds us that "the real proof is in the pudding." Fortunately for Saegis, he seems to have the right mix.