Quintiles is raising its stake in Prana Biotechnology, an Australian company focused on Alzheimer’s disease and other major age-related neurodegenerative disorders, by acquiring $1 million worth of new Prana shares, according to PharmaTimes.

The new funding will be used to support Prana’s strategy to accelerate clinical development of its lead compound PBT2, in phase II trials for Alzheimer’s disease.

In April, Prana said it was widening the target indications for PBT2 to include Huntington’s disease, which “should enable Prana to target market approval for PBT2 several years sooner than previously planned and at considerably less cost.”

A six-month phase II placebo-controlled trial of the compound in 100 mild Huntington’s disease patients is scheduled to start in the fourth quarter of 2011. In the third quarter, Prana plans to initiate a 12-month phase II brain imaging study of PBT2 in 40 mild Alzheimer’s Disease patients.

Prana said in June 2010 Quintiles had agreed to acquire more than 7 million new ordinary shares in Prana.