Benzinga - Israeli psychedelics biotech Clearmind Medicine Inc. (NASDAQ: CMND) is commencing the production of its proprietary drug candidate based on the MEAI molecule.
It will be used in the upcoming Phase 1 clinical trial assessing the treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD).
"Like other addictions, AUD is a chronic relapsing brain disorder characterized by an impaired ability to stop or control alcohol use," Clearmind’s CEO Dr. Adi Zuloff-Shani said. "Alcohol abuse is the third-most-common preventable cause of death in the US, where almost 6% struggle with this condition."
The company’s CEO stated that the non-clinical data generated so far demonstrate that the MEAI-based treatment could potentially treat a broad range of addictions and binge behaviors.
Interestingly, the drug candidate — CMND-100 — also delivered positive pre-clinical results when combined with cannabinoid-based treatment CannAmide for AUD, and when tested for cocaine addiction.
Clinical batches of CMND-100 are being produced under FDA’s Good Manufacturing Process (GMP) conditions, following MEAI's synthesis development process.
It's partly enabled by a constructive Pre-Investigational New Drug Application (pre-IND) meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on the novel compound’s development.
More On MEAI Also known as 5-methoxy-2-aminoindane (or 5-MeO-AI) or Chaperon, MEAI is a non-hallucinogenic psychoactive compound derived from MMAI.
It is part of the indane family of molecules and was first explicitly and pharmacologically described by Profs. David Nutt and Ezekiel Golan in a peer-reviewed paper in 2017, later followed by further pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics and metabolism descriptions in 2018.
MEAI was an early replacement drug candidate for alcohol addiction, coming to market during a late 2010’s movement to replace alcohol with less-toxic alternatives.
Photo by Adam Wilson on Unsplash
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