BOSTON, May 16, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Cerevance, a private, clinical-stage drug discovery and development company focused on developing novel therapeutics for central nervous system (CNS) diseases using the company’s proprietary Nuclear Enriched Transcript Sort sequencing (NETSseq) platform, today announced plans to present an oral presentation at the upcoming American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology (ASCP) conference, taking place in Miami, Florida, May 30 – June 2, 2023.
“We are very excited to present the Phase 1 CVN766 data for the first time at a medical conference,” said Craig Thompson, chief executive officer of Cerevance. “The favorable safety and tolerability profile coupled with lack of somnolence supports the potential of CVN766 to become an impactful treatment to address the unmet need of negative and cognitive symptoms in patients with schizophrenia.”
Presentation details
Title: A Phase 1, Randomized, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Safety, Tolerability, and Pharmacokinetic Study of Escalating Single and Multiple Doses of CVN766, an OX1R Highly Selective Antagonist in Healthy Subjects
Presenter: Ottavio Vitolo, MD
Session Date and Time: Tuesday, May 30th, 2:00 – 4:00pm
Session Title: Pharmaceutical Pipeline
About CVN766
CVN766 is a potent and highly selective antagonist of the Ox1R compared to Ox2R (>1000 fold). Ox1R has genetic links to domains of psychiatric disorders and is expressed in areas of the brain important for regulating emotions, fear, anxiety and motivation. To date, Cerevance’s Nuclear Enriched Transcript Sort sequencing (NETSseq) technology platform has confirmed Ox1R expression in cell types relevant to schizophrenia in humans. Orexin A, the endogenous ligand for Ox1R, is dysregulated in patients with various psychiatric conditions including schizophrenia.
CVN766 has demonstrated efficacy in multiple preclinical models of cognition and negative symptoms of schizophrenia and in models of dependency type behaviors and anxiety. These include efficacy in executive function/attentional set shifting paradigms of cognition, reversal of phencyclidine (PCP) induced social interaction deficits, reduction in amphetamine induced dopamine release, efficacy in binge eating, alcohol and nicotine-dependency models and efficacy in the marmoset human threat test of anxiety.
About Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a severe neurodevelopmental disorder that interferes with a person’s ability to think clearly, manage emotions, make decisions and relate to others. Approximately 1% of the population is affected by schizophrenia with a similar global prevalence. Patients with schizophrenia experience a variety of symptoms which are broadly clustered into three primary symptom domains, positive symptoms, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits. While positive symptoms can be largely managed with existing medication, negative symptoms and cognitive deficits are not well treated and can be predictors of patient outcome. Negative symptoms include social withdrawal, anhedonia, blunted effect, alogia and avolition, while cognitive deficits include problems in speed of processing, attention and vigilance, working memory, verbal and visual learning and social cognition.
About Cerevance
Cerevance is focused on the development of treatments for central nervous system (CNS) disorders, with a focus on chronic neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, and Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Utilizing a large and growing collection of over 13,000 human brain tissue samples, Cerevance is generating an unprecedented level of expression and epigenetic data thereby enabling the company to identify the most promising targets for the next generation of treatments for CNS disorders.
The company utilizes its proprietary NETSseq platform and advanced machine learning techniques to uncover the gene expression profiles of select cell types to identify novel targets that are uniquely expressed in relevant circuits affected by diseases or are altered in disease states. With the information obtained from its research, combined with the expertise of its team of scientists and drug developers, Cerevance is advancing multiple therapeutics that selectively modulate the discovered targets. These treatments are progressing through clinical development, with CVN424, CVN766, and CVN293 being the furthest along in the pipeline. CVN424 is a first-in-class non-dopamine therapy that shows promise in improving both motor and non-motor symptoms of Parkinson's disease and may also have disease-delaying effects. CVN766 is a potent antagonist of the orexin 1 receptor with high selectivity over the orexin 2 receptor and is in development for the treatment of negative and cognitive symptoms of schizophrenia. CVN293 is a novel blocker of potassium efflux in glia, regulating the inflammasome in individuals living with ALS and Alzheimer's disease.
By leveraging its extensive collection of brain tissue samples, employing advanced technologies, and generating actionable data, Cerevance aims to transform the lives of patients affected by CNS diseases.
Contacts
Cerevance:
Johnna Simoes, ir@cerevance.com
Media:
Andrew Mielach, amielach@lifescicomms.com, +1-646-876-5868
