Shares in Solvonis Therapeutics PLC (LSE:SVNS, OTC:SLVNF) rose 7% to 0.15p after it cleared the first hurdle in a US government testing programme for an experimental treatment for cocaine and methamphetamine addiction.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the US government's medical research arm, has agreed to advance the compound, known as SVN-015, into a further round of studies.
The agency funds and runs the work itself through its Addiction Treatment Discovery Program, giving the London-listed company access to specialist laboratories without paying for them or issuing new shares.
Solvonis keeps ownership of the compound and its patents.
The initial screening looked for signs that SVN-015 might interfere with the heart's electrical activity, a problem that has derailed earlier drugs of this type.
Solvonis said the compound performed better on those measures than GBR-12909, a compound tested by the agency decades ago as a treatment for cocaine dependence and known to affect several cardiac ion channels.
Ion channels are the protein gateways that control the flow of charged particles in and out of heart cells, governing the organ's rhythm.
The company cautioned that the findings are laboratory results only and do not establish that the drug is safe in animals or humans.
SVN-015 is designed to act on the transporters that recycle dopamine and serotonin, two chemical messengers in the brain that stimulants such as cocaine hijack.
The next stage of work will include a mouse study measuring how quickly the compound takes effect and how long its activity lasts.
Researchers will also run confirmatory tests on its binding to the dopamine transporter and follow up on its activity at a receptor linked to heart valve damage in some older drugs.
There is no medicine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for stimulant use disorder, leaving behavioural therapy as the main treatment.
Anthony Tennyson, chief executive, said the agency's decision provided external validation of the case for further evaluation.
Professor David Nutt, the company's chief scientific officer and a prominent figure in British drugs research, described the findings as highly promising early results.
The compound remains at the discovery stage, several years from any human trial, and came out of Solvonis's artificial intelligence-assisted drug discovery work.
---ADDS SHARE PRICE MOVEMENT---
