News

In September PharmNovo AB officially moved to Medicon Village in Lund and the newly opened building ”The Spark”. Being located at Medicon Village offers great opportunities for networking and finding new collaboration and service partners. Being one of the largest life science hubs in the Nordics, Medicon is also a fantastic platform for marketing our company and attracting future investors and partners.

A paper entitled “PN6047, a G protein-biased delta opioid receptor agonist with an improved therapeutic profile for use in chronic pain” was delivered at the Christmas meeting of the British Pharmacological Society at London’s QE2 Centre (17–20th December). The communication was given by Dr Alex Conibear who is working in Prof Eamonn Kelly’s research group at the University of Bristol funded by a Medical Research Council project grant to PharmNovo and Prof Kelly for the study of biased signalling via delta opioid receptors. The potential clinical use of PN6047 for the treatment of chronic pain and, in particular, mechanical allodynia, was explained and a detailed account of its biased signalling profile was given.

PharmNovo AB have been granted a patent in the USA for our candidate delta opioid receptor agonist PN6047. The European Patent Office is very likely to follow suit early in 2019. PN6047 is a biased delta opioid receptor agonist (DOBRA) favouring signalling through G proteins and, in preclinical testing, it has none of the unwanted side effects of conventional opioid analgesics. PharmNovo AB have been granted a patent in the USA for our candidate delta opioid receptor agonist PN6047. This is a key step towards clinical testing for the treatment of chronic pain states.

In November, PharmNovo AB opened a new office at the Medicon Village in Lund, Sweden. This science research park is a transformation of former Astra Zeneca buildings now housing over 100 high tec organizations. The location provides extensive opportunities for collaborations at every level of drug development from molecular design to clinical testing.

In order to provide advice on the clinical potential for PharmNovo’s delta opioid receptor agonists, Professor Andrew Rice from Imperial College London has agreed to become a consultant to the team. Prof Rice is an internationally regarded clinical and scientific expert in the field of chronic pain.

Our CSO Prof David Kendall is co-organizer of a British Pharmacological Society-sponsored symposium at the 2018 ELRIG Drug Discovery meeting in London in October (Read here). The symposium entitled “The opioid crisis, addiction and the search for more effective analgesics”, will bring together industrial and academic pain research experts and Prof Kendall will give a presentation on the potential of delta opioid receptor agonists in chronic pain therapy.