DALLAS, Nov. 3 /PRNewswire/ -- Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. today announced that it has been awarded a Phase I grant by the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). This grant supports discovery of small molecule drugs with the potential to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
“We are very pleased to have been awarded this grant,” said Warren Huff, President and Chief Executive Officer of Reata. “We believe the Reata discovery platform, which is based on important biological insights about protein misfolding, holds great promise to discover new drugs for many different diseases. This grant will help us make significant progress in finding drugs to treat ALS and other devastating neurodegenerative diseases.”
About the ALS Drug Discovery Project
More than 30,000 Americans currently suffer from ALS, a devastating neurodegenerative condition that affects nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. Current treatment options are limited, with most patients progressing through various stages of physical disability and, ultimately, to death.
Although the biological causes of ALS are not fully known, mutations in the protein Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase 1 (SOD1) have been linked to the development of ALS. This mutation causes accumulation of potentially toxic deposits of misfolded SOD1 in affected neurons. Reata has developed an assay that selectively identifies small molecule drugs capable of rescuing the SOD1 protein from misfolding, thereby eliminating these toxic deposits and altering the course of the disease. The first agents to emerge from this discovery project are expected to begin animal testing in early 2006.
About Reata’s Discovery Platform
Protein misfolding is rapidly gaining recognition as a critical pathological process in many intractable diseases, but drug discovery efforts based on this insight have been hampered by a lack of suitable assay systems. To overcome the limitations of standard methods, Reata founding scientists developed the proprietary RPM (Rescuing Proteins from Misfolding) assay for screening chemical libraries to identify compounds that promote proper folding of disease-related proteins. The RPM assay is cell-based, which is critical for replicating the biological context for protein folding, and suitable for high-throughput screening. The Reata discovery platform combines this patented assay method with the rich biological insight of the company’s scientific founders to characterize these highly complex disease processes and discover useful new therapies.
In addition to the ALS-directed screen, which targets a protein critical to the pathology of ALS, Reata has applied its discovery platform technology to identify small molecule chaperones that prevent or reverse misfolding of p53, an important regulatory protein that is mutated in many human cancers. Several interesting classes of molecules have emerged from this assay and are undergoing further biological testing. Reata is also applying the RPM technology to discover compounds that correct the folding status of the key pathogenic proteins involved in Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Huntington’s disease. Products discovered through the application of this technology could alter the course of these diseases and offer significant advantages over current symptomatic treatments.
About Reata
Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of novel treatments for cancer, inflammation, and neurodegenerative diseases. Founded in 2002, Reata is developing five distinct classes of cancer drugs licensed from leading academic institutions. The company’s most advanced products, RTA 744 for primary brain cancer and RTA 401 for hematological cancers and solid tumors, are in phase 1 clinical development. An IND for a third product, RTA 402, is slated for filing at the end of 2005. Reata is matching its clinical and preclinical drug development programs with a best-of-class drug discovery platform to identify novel small molecules that target critical pathogenic processes in cancer, inflammation, and neurodegenerative disease.
Reata will be presenting data on several of its programs, including its discovery platform, at the BIO-Europe annual meeting in Dresden, Germany on November 7, 2005 and at the AACR-NCI-EORTC International Conference on Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics in Philadelphia, PA on November 14, 2005.
For more information, please see http://www.reatapharma.com .
Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
CONTACT: press, Warren Huff of Reata Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,+1-972-865-2200, or warren.huff@reatapharma.com
Web site: http://www.reatadiscovery.com/