Awakn Life Sciences Chief Scientific Officer Professor David Nutt talked with Proactive about the company's new commercial collaboration with Graft Polymer (UK) PLC (LSE:GPL). This partnership aims to advance Awakn's novel aminoindane new chemical entity series, targeting trauma disorders such as PTSD, depression, and addictions.
In the interview, Nutt highlighted the serious nature of PTSD, describing it as a "disorder of this century." He noted that current treatments are inadequate, and the collaboration seeks to enhance the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of these new therapeutics.
Proactive: Awakn has entered into a commercial collaboration with Graft Polymer UK that aims to advance your novel aminoindane new chemical entity series. Could you explain more about the series and what it’s targeted at?
Prof. David Nutt: Well, we're targeted at trauma disorders, initially post-traumatic stress disorder, but also a range of other disorders ranging from depression to addictions, which are triggered by traumas, or at least that traumas underpin some of the vulnerability to those disorders. And trauma disorders are very hard to treat. And perhaps the most exciting development in recent years has been the development of MDMA as a treatment. But of course, that's got a street name of ecstasy. It's an illegal drug. It's been widely used recreationally, and it has some problems, in addition to that. So the aminoindane offers another way of approaching trauma treatment with legal drugs that have got patentability. And also we can improve potentially on these, kinetics and the side effects.
Proactive: How serious are mental health disorders like PTSD, David? And how can these aminoindanes assist?
Prof. David Nutt: Well, PTSD really is the disorder of this century. This just earlier this morning, I've just come off a call with Ukrainian psychiatrists. It is estimated that 5 million Ukrainians now have PTSD. You know, it's a population disorder rather than an individual disorder now. And we need to find new treatments. And the truth is that the emergence of MDMA as a therapy in the States has been driven largely by the fact that more veterans, more American veterans kill themselves than are killed by the enemy now. And that tells you the pain and the trauma that the warfare and PTSD put on people. So PTSD is a huge problem, and its current treatments are not very effective. We've got to do better because it's a growing problem.
Proactive: How can the tie-up with Graft Polymer and its drug delivery systems help improve the performance of your therapeutics, David?
Prof. David Nutt: Well, what we're hoping is we can improve what we call kinetics, the speed at which the drug gets to the body. We can improve bioavailability and also change the kinetics. So, I mean, MDMA therapy is the most promising, but current MDMA therapy basically takes a whole day. And that's very tiring for the patient, who's very demanding for the therapists, and very expensive. And we would like to bring MDMA therapy down much more like ketamine therapy, where you can have essentially a full therapeutic session within half a day. And we think the aminoindanes, with their shorter kinetics, particularly if we can amplify those benefits with the new Graft Polymer technology, that we could actually have a different paradigm here, twice as many people essentially getting treated in any particular day.
Proactive: So Graft Polymer is also investing £300,000 into Awakn. How will that be used to enhance the bioavailability and pharmacokinetics of your aminoindane NCEs?
Prof. David Nutt: Yes, well, what we want to do is we want to have oral administration. Obviously, that's the most preferred way, but there are different ways you can get drugs into the body. You can, through the mouth, it doesn't have to go into the stomach. Things that go into the stomach often get broken down. Now, the Graft Polymer technology has already developed ways in which you can bypass some of the metabolism in the stomach, but it's also possible to use that technology to facilitate uptake, for instance, through the cheek, through the lining of the mouth. And that's quite an efficient way of getting a medicine in. Again, avoiding it going to the liver. So reducing metabolism. And that has two advantages. That means that you give less, there's less risk of allergic reactions. And also you get fewer metabolites. So, of course, metabolites are always one of the things you have to be concerned about when you're developing a new medicine.