CoLucid: Safety in the CNS
CoLucid Pharmaceuticals Inc. is developing two CNS programs aimed at matching or beating the efficacy of approved drugs while besting their side effect profiles. The company has a migraine compound with a novel mechanism of action that it believes will have better efficacy than triptans without their risks. Similarly, CoLucid’s stigmine platform for development of bifunctional compounds that hit two CNS targets in succession offers a new approach to delivering approved therapeutics to the brain to retain the efficacy of delivering each separately, but with fewer side effects.
Triptans, the leading class of marketed migraine drugs, target serotonin (5-HT1B/1D) receptors, alleviating pain by indirectly binding to these receptors on trigeminal neurons and on cerebral blood vessels, causing vasoconstriction. This mechanism limits their use in patients with underlying cardiac risk because the receptors also exist on coronary arteries, which can lead to serious adverse events, including myocardial infarction (MI)...