Rutgers Startup Wants to Design Safe Prescription Opiates | Newswise

Rutgers startup Zena Therapeutics is striving to develop drug therapies that will reduce or even eliminate overdoses from prescription drugs.

Founded by Eileen Carry, PhD, and Ariane Vasilatis, PhD, the company relies on a new method developed at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey: a compound that does not increase the risk of overdose if taken intravenously others are in the middle. system depressants such as opioids and alcohol.

“What we want to do is to make medicine so that even if it is misused, death will not be the result,” said Carry. “Now, when it comes to narcotics, the responsibility is on the patient to take the medicine as prescribed, but that is not a guarantee. We hope to change the paradigm to significantly reduce the risk of using drugs without compromising effectiveness. ”

“We believe that it is possible and feasible to develop drugs and medicines where death is not the result of misuse, either accidentally or intentionally for pleasure,” said Vasilatis. “We’ve both had family and friends who have succumbed to addiction and alcoholism, unfortunately, so we share the passion for this creative project.”

The collaboration between Carry and Vasilatis began in the lab of James Simon, PhD, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Plant Biology at Rutgers School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. Carry’s research focused on safe drugs for addiction and mental health, which led to the creation of an effective molecule. He asked Vasilatis to join him in business training through the I-Corps program at Rutgers, and from there, Zena Therapeutics was founded.

Vasilatis said, “The I-Corps training, at Rutgers and in the national program, was important to us because we needed to understand: is there an end user? Is there a market for This? Or is it so good that it won’t reach that end user? I-Corps helped us realize that we had another niche market, but there was broad application Programs such as I-Corps or Yale Innovation Impact has been invaluable with all the knowledge we have gained and the people we have met.”

“We were able to improve our business model by participating in two National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corps programs, both here at Rutgers and nationally,” said Carry. “When we did the I-Corps training, where we talked to the prescribers and people from the patient population, we realized what the problem was and that there was a gap; nobody who is really focused on this issue. So that motivated us to move forward.”

According to the National Center on Drug Abuse, drug overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have risen from 3,442 in 1999 to more than 17,000 in 2017, and have close to 15,000 per year since then. Carry and Vasilatis believe that people with drug addiction patterns may become addicted to their prescription drugs, and because more than 40% of US adults drink alcohol while using medicine, their innovation can change the lives of many people and families.

The company’s website says preliminary studies with its new compound show “good pharmacokinetics, strong anxiolytic activity… and good safety characteristics.” Carry and Vasilatis hope this combination will help both people with general anxiety and panic disorders as well as those with withdrawal symptoms.

“We are starting with anxiety medications, in particular we hope to develop alternatives to benzodiazepines, which are the current standard treatment for generalized anxiety and panic disorder and are often associated with extremes and -opiates,” said Carry. “Before, companies focused on drug addiction. We understand that any psychoactive drug is addictive in the sense that it has a psychological component. However, none of the current medications have been developed to reduce the risk of overdose, and we believe that we can do so without compromising effectiveness. In fact, we make medication that has a ceiling effect, so if someone takes the whole bottle, it won’t raise the level of mild sedation but it will still help with anxiety.

Vasilatis and Carry will continue to work together to lead Zena Therapeutics, named after the Slavic word for ‘woman’ (žena), serving as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, respectively. . The company has received funding to date through the New Jersey Health Foundation, I-Corps program, $1 million in seed funding from Foundation Venture Capital Group, LLC, and a Phase I National Institutes of Health STTR grant (Small Business Technology Transfer), the latter through which they are able to use Rutgers’ core services. The next step, according to Carry, is to move the compounds to clinical trials.

Vasilatis laughed: “It seems like whoever jumps on the Zena Therapeutics bandwagon doesn’t leave. “And everyone who helped us was invaluable, from Dr. Simon, who helped push us into the I-Corps program, to Dr. Nicholas Bello (Department of Veterinary Medicine) who helped us get our Phase I STTR, to Dr. Jacques Roberge at the Rutgers Biomolecular Innovation Cores, to the Rutgers Office for Research’s Technology Transfer and New Ventures teams, who have been hosting and sending us. offer opportunities or whatever they think will help us. Our passion is what created Zena, and Eileen’s ideas are what created the foundation for the company, but we couldn’t have stepped on it. before without this support.”

“Zena Therapeutics is another example of how Rutgers researchers are focusing their work on issues and questions that face the world,” said Deborah Perez Fernandez, PhD, MBA, executive director of Technology Transfer, and Vince Smeraglia. , JD, managing director of New Ventures. “The problem affects both Dr. Carry and Vasilatis, as is the case with many people, and the Technology Transfer and New Ventures teams are proud to support them in their efforts to solve this problem. ”