Graft Polymer (UK) PLC (LSE:GPL) CEO Anthony Tennyson talked with Proactive this week about the company’s current focus on developing treatments for psychiatric disorders, particularly Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
During the interview, Tennyson explained that PTSD affects over 13 million Americans and a combined total of 20 million people across the UK and key EU economies. He highlighted the company’s innovative approach, which targets the serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline receptors crucial to trauma processing.
Proactive: Anthony, good to speak with you again. Tell us about Graft Polymer and its focus?
Anthony Tennyson: At Graft Polymer, we're an innovative biotechnology company. Our therapeutic focus is on psychiatric disorders, which unfortunately is an area of significant unmet medical need.
Our primary focus within that category is post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which, unfortunately, affects many millions of people.
In fact, PTSD affects 13 million Americans, and when you include the UK and the EU’s big four economies, that number rises to 20 million.
The current standard of care for PTSD is poor. For us at Graft Polymer, that makes it an attractive area to focus on because of the large addressable market and significant unmet medical need.
We're addressing that opportunity by co-developing small molecule therapeutics, which target the serotonin, dopamine, and noradrenaline receptors. These play a critical role in the brain's response to trauma and processing it, and hopefully, for us, the healing and treatment of that trauma.
Proactive: You've announced a research agreement with the University of Nottingham. What is this aimed at?
Anthony Tennyson: We recently announced that we'd selected Eurofins to undertake screening of our co-lead series, which we've co-developed against serotonin, noradrenaline, and dopamine. But what we wanted to do is go beyond that, Stephen.
We're really excited to partner with the University of Nottingham and Dr. Madeleine King. Dr. King has developed a model that enables us to test our molecules' ability to release empathy. This is an essential part of how the brain processes, repairs, and heals from trauma.
Proactive: Dr. King, she's leading the research. What can you tell us about her?
Anthony Tennyson: We're really pleased to work with Dr. King. She's acknowledged as an expert in her field and brings 20 years of innovative research in neuroscience and psychiatric disorders. We're also pleased with the University of Nottingham, where Dr. King works, as they are globally recognized as a leading institution in neuroscience, and they're a leading UK institution as well.
Proactive: Anthony, how will this take your NCE program forward?
Anthony Tennyson: This will enable us to take the research forward by helping us select a lead series after we've conducted these research pieces and testing with Eurofins.
Ultimately, this will help us de-risk the program, accelerate toward clinical trials, and achieve our ultimate goal: to get more effective treatments to patients sooner, providing hope for individuals and families suffering from PTSD.
Proactive: Anthony, I hope you'll keep us updated on any progress. Thank you very much for speaking with us.