Yichang Humanwell Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. has disclosed morphinan derivatives acting as κ-opioid receptor agonists reported to be useful for the treatment of pain and pruritus.
At the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego this week, Catherine Woolley’s plenary lecture was an unusual combination of debunking and affirming the importance of sex differences in the brain.
Idorsia Pharmaceuticals Ltd. has identified aryl sulfone and sulfanone derivatives acting as orexin OX2 receptor (HCRTR2) agonists reported to be useful for the treatment of eating disorders, fatigue, Kleine-Levin syndrome, narcolepsy, obesity, pain, and psychiatric and inflammatory disorders, among others.
Pretzel Therapeutics Inc. has described DNA polymerase subunit γ-1 (POLG) modulators reported to be useful for the treatment of neurodegeneration and mitochondrial diseases.
Akeso Inc. has received clearance from China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) to initiate clinical trials with AK-152 for Alzheimer’s disease.
Researchers from the Chinese Institute for Brain Research, the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, and their collaborators have identified adenosine as the driving force behind the rapid, fast-acting antidepressant effects of ketamine and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). “Our journey into this area of research began over a decade ago, around 2013, when the clinical world was buzzing with excitement about ketamine's remarkably rapid antidepressant effects,” Minmin Luo, co-senior author of the study, told BioWorld.
Shanghai Innoxtal Therapeutics Co. Ltd. has disclosed sodium channel protein type 10 subunit α (SCN10A; Nav1.8) blockers reported to be useful for the treatment of pain, arrhythmia and urinary incontinence.
Researchers from the Baylor College of Medicine have characterized 100 conserved Alzheimer’s disease (AD) risk orthologue genes in Drosophila and found several with unknown roles in brain structure, function and stress resilience. The implication of this finding is that new pathways of neurodegeneration have been revealed, offering new insights into the genetic complexity of AD.
Transition Bio Inc. and Voyager Therapeutics Inc. have entered into a drug discovery collaboration and license option agreement for novel, selective small molecules for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia (FTD) with TDP-43 pathology.
Sage Therapeutics Inc. has described sterol derivatives acting as glutamate receptor ionotropic, NMDA 2A (GRIN2A; GluN2A) negative allosteric modulators reported to be useful for the treatment of neurological disorders.