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Synthonics, Inc News...
September 15, 2009 Synthonics Awarded NIH Grant
The National Institute of Health and National Institute of Neurological Disorders
and Stroke has awarded Synthonics a grant for its application entitle "Levodopa
Pharmacokinetic Optimization by Metal Coordination." Synthonics will use the funds
from the grant to formulate a continuous release version of the prodrug levodopa
with the goal of optimizing its therapeutic effect. June 23, 2009 Synthonics Accepted Into Lilly's PD2 Testing Program
On June 23, 2009 Synthonics was accepted into Eli Lilly's competitive
PD2 (Phenotypic Drug Discovery) program. Lilly's PD2 program is a collaborative
research program that will accept compounds from institutions and provide the
necessary testing to fully evaluate the compound as a potential drug candidate.
Once testing is completed, Lilly evaluates the data and determines whether to
initiate discussions on a possible collaboration. Synthonics has several metal
coordinated pharmaceuticals ready for testing by Lilly that are within Lilly's
drug development focus.
A description of Lilly's PD2 program:
Phenotypic drug discovery provides an alternative approach that begins by
querying more complex cellular systems instead of specific targets. The possible
advantage resides in the fact that a relevant biological context is interrogated
without predisposed bias toward mechanism(s). Thus an opportunity is created
to identify compounds that may interact with one or more targets or pathways
not anticipated by a single mechanism-driven hypothesis. In essence, phenotypic
approaches screen multiple mechanisms and targets simultaneously. Furthermore,
since the initial readouts from cellular assays are more information-rich, the
connection of compound action to disease-relevant phenotypes is established
earlier in the drug discovery process. The challenge with phenotypic drug
discovery ultimately lies in the complexity of fully understanding and assessing
compound differentiation and elucidating with greater resolution the possible
mechanisms of action. Fortunately, this complexity has been substantially
reduced with the development of advanced assay technologies and informatics
tools that make these challenges tractable for drug discovery
"Our first grant award from the NIH is a confirmation that our novel metal coordinated
pharmaceutical (MCP) chemistry has commercialization potential" said Kenneth J. Slepicka,
CEO of Synthonics. "Our team, who all helped in preparing a quality proposal,
are excited to pursue this project, which will help both to advance our chemistry and
to address the need for an oral levodopa product that provides steady, continuous blood
levels. We hope that this is the first of many grant awards as we have two other
favorably reviewed applications awaiting funding decisions."