Click Therapeutics Inc. and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH inked a deal valued at more than $500 million to collaborate on the development and commercialization of a prescription-based digital therapeutic for schizophrenia. The mobile application, currently called CT-155, uses cognitive and neurobehavioral techniques to reduce the symptoms of schizophrenia, such as cognitive deficits and impaired social functioning.
Karuna Therapeutics Inc. remains on track to launch a phase III study by the end of this year with Karxt against acute psychosis in schizophrenia by way of the broad-based program called Emergent, and the company continues planning for a phase II study testing the combo drug as adjunctive therapy with standard of care in the same indication.
Neurocrine Biosciences Inc.’s chief business development and strategy officer, Kyle Gano, said “there was really no playbook” for the deal in which his firm is paying Takeda Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. $120 million up front for an exclusive license to seven programs, including three clinical-stage assets targeting the notoriously difficult indications of schizophrenia and treatment-resistant depression (TRD), as well as depression-related anhedonia.
A phase III test of roluperidone, a drug developed by Minerva Neurosciences Inc. with a goal of treating negative symptoms in schizophrenia, found that the experimental medicine failed to deliver statistically significant differences vs. placebo in improving both the trial's primary endpoint, a common measure of symptom severity, and its secondary endpoint, a score measuring social function.
Pairing the in-licensed muscarinic acetylcholine receptor agonist xanomeline with the well-known muscarinic antagonist trospium chloride in the single drug called Karxt gave Karuna Therapeutics Inc. the required phase II efficacy against acute psychosis in schizophrenia, while keeping a quite satisfactory safety and side-effect profile.
A subtype of schizophrenia is related to abnormally high brain levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which has important implications for the development of new treatments, according to a study by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan.
A subtype of schizophrenia is related to abnormally high brain levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S), which has important implications for the development of new treatments, according to a study by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Brain Science (CBS) in Japan.
TORONTO – Health Canada has granted a medical license to Toronto-based pharmaceuticals company Hls Therapeutics Inc. for a device that simplifies blood monitoring for patients suffering from treatment-resistant schizophrenia (TRS).
Drug "re-innovation" specialist Bioxcel Therapeutics Inc. is gearing up to discuss a pivotal phase III trial for BXCL-501 with the FDA after top-line results of a phase Ib study showed it reduced schizophrenia-associated agitation while calming trial participants without excessive sedation. H.C. Wainwright & Co. analyst Raghuram Selvaraju called the results "highly favorable" and suggested the drug, a sublingual-formulated version of dexmedetomidine, could reach market as soon as 2021.
