ImmunoPharmaceutics Inc. (IPI) has received a $50,000 smallbusiness innovation research (SBIR) grant from the NationalInstitute of Mental Health to use its mapping technology indesigning galanin antagonists for the treatment of Alzheimer'sdisease.

Manfred Wolff, IPI's senior vice president of research anddevelopment, said galanin is a 30-amino acid peptide"implicated in the causation of Alzheimer's by severalmechanisms," as it is involved in amyloid formation. He notedthat although peptide antagonists to galanin have beendeveloped, "they are incapable of crossing the blood-brainbarrier and thus pose a drug-delivery problem."

Privately held IPI has done research to overcome this problem,said Wolff, in designing and synthesizing non-peptideantagonists of the peptide endothelin. He added that "sinceendothelin is similar in size to galanin, we are confident thatour supercomputational drug-design technology will lead toeffective non-peptide galanin antagonists as well."

The San Diego-based company plans to apply for a $750,000Phase II contract once the Phase I is completed. This is IPI'ssecond SBIR this year. In June, the company received a grant tomap the structure of potential environmentally safeinsecticides.

The company's endothelin receptor antagonist is scheduled toenter clinicals in 1994 for a range of applications fromhypertension to restenosis. IPI's second product indevelopment, an IL-1 antagonist, is about 18 months behindthe endothelin antagonist.

-- Brenda Sandburg News Editor

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