BioCentury
ARTICLE | Tools & Techniques

Monkeys bridge the stroke gap

March 22, 2012 7:00 AM UTC

Toronto-based NoNO Inc. has become the first company to show that macaque models have the potential to derisk clinical testing of new stroke therapies, which typically have gone right from rat or rabbit models into humans. In February, the company reported that its neuroprotective peptide NA-1 was effective both in macaque models of stroke1 and in a Phase II trial to treat ruptured brain aneurysms.

The only drug in the U.S. to treat ischemic stroke is the clot buster Activase alteplase from Roche's Genentech Inc. unit and Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, which was approved in 1996. Since then, numerous neuroprotective therapies have shown efficacy in standard rat models of stroke, but all have failed in the clinic...