A review of agents patented for their neuroprotective properties

The brain continues to remain an area where little corrective surgery can be performed. Recently, the ability to reverse some brain damage and perhaps prevent further damage has moved closer to hospitals and clinics. Several agents demonstrating neuroprotective properties and even neural regeneration have been developed to the extent that they have been granted patent protection, one of the first steps in commercial development. The concept of neuroprotection is the administration of an agent that can reverse some of the damage or prevent further damage. Some agents offer protection against cell degeneration due to oxidative stress whilst other agents specifically protect against neural stroke damage. In the early years of neuroprotective research, most compounds were not designed as such but were found to possess neuroprotective activity in later studies. However, the original structures have since become the leads for purely synthetic derivatives. Most of the agents are or were designed from biologically active natural products, either plant extracts or endogenous peptides/proteins and even sequences of RNA. This review will present the most recently patented neuroprotective agents.