Awakn Life Sciences has signed the twelve month option agreement with a drug development company that will see its ketamine formulation and route of administration optimised for commercialisation.
Awakn has stated that the agreement and has the potential to deepen the intellectual property (IP) moat for Awakn’s lead clinical development program Project Kestrel, which targets Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).
AUD is a chronic disease with a poor current standard of care. It affects an estimated 400 million people globally with an approximate 25 per cent abstinence rate within 12 months of treatment.
Awakn CEO, Anthony Tennyson, commented: “We are very happy to sign this agreement which is a key milestone in our strategy to bring our proprietary ketamine-assisted therapy for the treatment of AUD to market and to be able to help such a large cohort of people who are in such desperate need of an effective treatment and unfortunately do not currently have one.”
Results from Awakn’s Phase 2 b clinical trial, which was part of Project Kestrel, showed 86 per cent abstinence at six months post treatment compared to the standard 25 per cent abstinence rate. Awakn is now progressing this programme into Phase 3 in the UK.
The company has also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the UK public healthcare system, the NHS, in December 2021 to establish a partnership to assess NHS organisational readiness for ketamine-assisted therapy, and to collaborate on how to accelerate the on-label use of ketamine-assisted therapy to treat AUD within the NHS’ existing infrastructure.
Awakn has stated that the proprietary formulation of ketamine and optimised route of administration in scope for this agreement has the potential to provide the best possible patient experience and outcomes in addition to deepening Awakn’s IP moat, and that it is planning for the new formulation to be evaluated in its Phase 3 clinical trial.
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