Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Wins $500,000 NIMH SBIR Grant to Develop New Drugs for Anxiety
PASADENA, CA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--June 2, 2005--Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc., an ion
channel drug discovery company, announced today that it has been awarded a $500,000 Phase
I SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, administered by the NIMH (National Institute
of Mental Health). Neurion is using the grant to support its ongoing development of safer and
more effective drugs to treat anxiety.
Paul B. Bennett, Ph.D., Neurion's Vice President of Discovery, said, "The NIMH has recognized
the value of our technology as a potential breakthrough in neuropharmacology. Strategically, this
grant puts Neurion in a very strong position to advance our goals of developing non-sedating
anti-anxiety drugs, as well as novel ion channel drugs for other diseases and disorders of the
CNS (central nervous system). We are excited about this recognition from the NIMH, and this
opportunity to advance neuro-psychiatric medicine as well."
Successful treatment of generalized anxiety disorders (GAD) is major unmet medical need.
According to the NIMH, four million adult Americans (ages 18-54) suffer from GAD. About twice
as many women as men are affected.
It is remarkable that there have been no major breakthroughs in drug treatments for anxiety in the
approximately 50 years since the benzodiazepines (such as the well-known drug Valium®i) were
first introduced. Benzodiazepines are an important drug class with both desirable and
undesirable actions, mediated through GABAA receptors in the brain. GABA (gamma-amino
butyric acid) is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in human CNS.
The recent progress in molecular neuro-genetics has revealed the existence of multiple GABA
receptor sub-types and their involvement in sleep, mood and anxiety. These discoveries open the
door for new drugs targeted to specific GABAA receptor subtypes to be developed.
Neurion's GABAA research program is specifically focused on the GABAA-α2 receptor subtype,
which, evidence indicates, is associated with anxiety, but not with the sedation or memory effects.
Neurion's goal is to produce a novel anti-anxiety drug that would avoid the sleepiness and
memory impairment that anxiety sufferers may encounter when taking existing anti-anxiety
medications, such as benzodiazepines.
This SBIR award will help fund commercialization of Neurion’s unique technology that enables
the precise understanding of the molecular interactions that define drug selectivity. Drugs that are
more selective and site-specific in their action are expected to lack the sedative, memory
impairing and hypnotic side effects of the benzodiazepines and other more recently introduced
anti-anxiety medications.
Mark W. Nowak, Ph.D., Neurion's Associate Director, Molecular Neurosciences, said, "The
difficulty in designing GABAA-α2 receptor-selective drugs is the lack of understanding of what
defines selective drug binding and efficacy with GABAA receptor subtypes. Neurion is now in a
position to make advances in this area through the use of Neurion's NP2 (Neurion Precision
Neurochemistry Platform) technology."
About Neurion
Neurion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (www.neurionpharma.com)
is a privately held, early-stage pharmaceutical company whose mission is to discover and develop safer and more effective
pharmaceuticals that target ion channels and other membrane proteins. The Company uses its
proprietary drug discovery and lead optimization platforms, NP2 and hERG MAP™, to
understand the structural basis of drug-ion channel interactions, and to design better drugs by exploiting this knowledge.
