SAN DIEGO, Sept. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- OREXIGEN(TM) Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held clinical-stage neuroscience company developing a novel strategic approach to the treatment of obesity, today announced that a Positron Emission Tomography (PET) imaging study of the opioid receptors in the central nervous system demonstrated, for the first time, that it is possible to achieve a functionally relevant clinical effect with naltrexone at doses significantly lower than the standard 50 mg/day commercial dose. Naltrexone is an opioid receptor antagonist used in the management of alcohol and opioid drug dependence. Researchers believe the same brain reward pathways may also be operative in food craving and obesity, and naltrexone may affect the naturally occurring endorphins that mediate attempts to lose weight through dieting or medications. These research findings will be used by OREXIGEN to optimize the dose of naltrexone, a constituent of the company's novel anti-obesity compound, Contrave(TM). The findings are the result of a collaborative research project with John Hopkins University School of Medicine.
