Vanderbilt neuroscience drug advances to clinic

Abstract

In a first for an academic drug discovery group, the Vanderbilt Center for Neuroscience Drug Discovery has received FDA approval to put a treatment for brain disorders into the clinic without any help from the pharmaceutical industry. A study assessing the safety of the compound, a positive allosteric modulator of muscarinic acetylcholine receptor 1 (M1) for Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia, will begin early next year. Academic drug discovery centers such as VCNDD typically focus on generating early-stage compounds that are spun off into companies or licensed to partners with the cash and experience to push them into clinical studies. Since it was established in 2008, VCNDD has secured several drug discovery partnerships with big pharma firms for preclinical compounds developed in its labs. But with many drug firms exiting neuroscience research, some of those programs have stalled. Big pharma’s waning commitment to neuroscience prompted a shift in strategy at VCNDD.