Concert Pharmaceuticals Inc. has entered a research collaboration with The National Institutes of Health Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program.

The collaboration was established to advance Concert’s deuterium-modified praziquantel program as a potential treatment for schistosomiasis, a disease caused by parasitic worms. TRND will support the collaborative evaluation of Concert’s deuterated compounds in a series of in vitro and in vivo preclinical studies and potentially through Phase 1 clinical testing. The research program will be directed by a joint Concert-TRND steering committee.

Current standard of care for schistosomiasis is treatment with oral praziquantel (PZQ). Because it is highly metabolized through a pronounced first-pass effect, PZQ has low effective bioavailability.  In order to achieve therapeutic blood levels patients are treated repeatedly with large doses of the drug.  Research carried out at Concert through its deuterated chemical entity platform (DCE Platform) suggests that deuterium-modified analogs of PZQ may require a substantially reduced effective dose.  These analogs are also single enantiomers ,which may address the notably bitter taste and vomiting associated with PZQ, potentially resulting in improved tolerability.

Release Date: Nov. 15, 2011
Source: Concert Pharmaceuticals Inc.