A licensing agreement for the continued development, production and marketing of an antiepileptic drug developed at the Hebrew University was signed between Shire Pharmaceuticals and the Hebrew University's implementation company. "Shire" is a multinational company that operates in Europe and North America
Prof. Meir Bialer
A licensing agreement for the continued development, production and marketing of an antiepileptic drug developed at the Hebrew University was signed between Shire Pharmaceuticals and the Hebrew University's implementation company. "Shire" is a multinational company that operates in Europe and North America.
The license was granted mainly for Valrocemide, a new antiepileptic drug whose efficacy was proven in a clinical trial. In "Shire" they intend to examine the suitability of the drug also in other diseases of the central nervous system such as mania depression and treatment of pain caused after damage to the nervous system.
Valrocemide was developed by a team led by Meir Bialer, professor of pharmacy at the School of Pharmacy at the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University. Prof. Meir Bialer, a leading researcher in the development of new neurological drugs, is responsible for more than 180 publications in the fields of antiepileptic drugs, pharmacology and the central nervous system.
The CEO of Nava Seversky Sofer stated that the agreement may generate revenues of tens of millions of dollars.
Epilepsy is a common neurological disease that approximately one percent of the world's population suffers from. The annual sales of antiepileptic drugs in the US alone reach more than 3 billion dollars.
Today, there are several drugs on the market to treat epilepsy, but a third of the patients do not respond well to the existing treatments and as a result continue to suffer from epileptic seizures. Hence the need for the development of new antiepileptic drugs that will ease the suffering of patients who take the drugs available on the market and continue to suffer from seizures and of patients who suffer from serious side effects.
The brain contains amino acids, which function as neurotransmitters, which inhibit or stimulate nerve transmissions in the central nervous system. Epilepsy is caused, among other things, by a disturbance in the balance between two functions: an increase in the level of excitatory amino acids or a decrease in the level of inhibitory acids.
Glycine is among inhibitory amino acids and increasing its concentration in the brain creates an antiepileptic effect. However, patients cannot be given glycine as it is because it fails to penetrate the blood-brain barrier that prevents certain drugs from reaching their target points in the central nervous system.
Prof. Meir Bialer's research team, which also includes his former doctoral student Dr. Salim Haddad, has developed a derivative of glycine that will be able to penetrate through the blood-brain barrier and whose removal from the body will mostly be carried out through a pre-planned route, in order to avoid unwanted side effects caused by As a result of metabolism to toxic substances.
The new drug for the central nervous system Valrocemide is a combination of a well-known antiepileptic drug, valproic acid and a derivative of glycine (glycinamide). Valrocemide was found to be one of the most effective drugs out of all the experiments conducted so far in Prof. Meir Bialer's laboratory.
