Awakn Life Sciences has confirmed it has signed its fourth Licensing Partnership agreement in North America with Ken Starr MD Wellness Group, an addiction treatment facility in California.
As part of the partnership, Awakn will provide access to, and training for its proprietary therapeutics package ‘Awakn Kare’ to Ken Starr practitioners, and Ken Starr MD Wellness Group will pay Awakn a fee and a revenue share per treatment.
Awakn Kare is a proprietary treatment protocol developed and validated in a Phase II a/b trial investigating ketamine for alcohol addiction, which demonstrated 86% abstinence over the six-months post-treatment versus 2% pre-trial.
This efficacy is significantly better than the current standard of care for alcohol use disorder (AUD) which has an approximate 25% abstinence rate over a similar timeframe.
Awakn’s Head of US Commercial Development, Kevin Lorenz, commented: “We are excited to partner with Ken Starr and his team, who are seasoned veterans in the addiction treatment industry.
“California is home to nearly 40 million people and unfortunately the rates of AUD are very high.
“With their experience, skill, and caring support for those struggling with AUD, Dr. Starr and his team are well positioned geographically to make Awakn’s breakthrough AUD treatment available to help many Californians who need it.
“From Awakn’s perspective expanding our US reach to the west coast and to include such an important market as California is another major milestone for our program, but most importantly we can offer this new more effective treatment to a whole new cohort of people who are in such desperate need.”
Awakn has stated that, with traditional AUD rehabilitation facilities in the US ranging in cost nationally from US$20,000 to US$65,000 per month, Awakn aims to improve performance of the addiction industry by providing clinic operators with access to an efficient and more effective treatment option under license.
Ken Starr added: “We are excited to partner with Awakn. For years we’ve been the leader in delivering both traditional and alternative therapies for those suffering with addiction.
“Both ketamine and IV NAD+ have shown tremendous promise in the addiction medicine space. With Awakn’s support and leadership we’ll be able to help change even more lives.”
