Date: 2015-09-28
Type of information: Grant
Company: Heptares Therapeutics (UK), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sosei Group (Japan)
Investors: National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) (USA)
Amount: $5.5 million
Funding type: grant
Planned used: The grant of approximately $5.5 million, with additional funding from Heptares, will support a three-year research project aimed at developing a selective antagonist for the human Orexin-1 receptor for use in treating cocaine addiction and dependence, for which there are currently no approved treatments.
The Orexin-1 receptor has been implicated in modulating cravings for a number of substances including cocaine, and antagonists of the receptor have been shown to be effective in models of cocaine addiction and dependence. Supported by the grant from NIDA, Heptares will progress lead molecules it has already identified to be selective antagonists of the Orexin-1 receptor to selection of a candidate drug, and then take this molecule through pre-clinical development. This project will be supported by the Heptares GPCR structure-based development platform, in particular making use of high-resolution X-ray structures Heptares has obtained of molecules bound to the closely related Orexin-1 and Orexin-2 receptors.
Others: * On September 28, 2015, Heptares Therapeutics, a clinical-stage GPCR structure-guided drug discovery and development company and wholly-owned subsidiary of Sosei Group Corporation, announced that it has been awarded a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the US National Institutes of Health. The grant of approximately $5.5 million, with additional funding from Heptares, will support a three-year research project aimed at developing a selective antagonist for the human Orexin-1 receptor for use in treating cocaine addiction and dependence, for which there are currently no approved treatments.
The research is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) of the US National Institutes of Health, under Grant Number R01DA039553-01.
Therapeutic area: CNS diseases
