This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
NIH grant supports repurposing of pain drug for Chagas’ disease
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
The NIH has awarded a grant to University of California, San Diego researchers to explore whether SAR114137, a chronic pain medication, could be repurposed for the treatment of Chagas’ disease, according to a press release.
“There are currently no FDA-approved therapies for Chagas’ disease,” James McKerrow, MD, PhD, director of the Skaggs School of Pharmacacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at UCSD, said in the release. “We call Chagas’ a ‘neglected’ disease because pharmaceutical companies aren’t interested in developing new therapies to treat it.”
SAR114137 (Sanofi) was chosen for study due to its inhibition of the protein Cathepsin S, according to the release. Previous research has shown that inhibitors of cruzain, a similar enzyme, can treat the disease in animals, although no clinical data of this interaction currently is available for humans.
“This award will allow us to confirm SAR114137’s antiparasitic activity in lab studies and in infected animals, then test its safety and effectiveness in humans with the disease,” McKerrow said. “It’s our hope that this work will lead to a more effective treatment for Chagas’ disease.”
According to the release, the NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) presented the award as part of its new Therapeutic Uses program. This program pairs researchers with pharmaceuticals that already have undergone safety testing in humans in an effort to reduce the time and cost of developing new treatments.
“By bringing together assets from pharmaceutical companies with new ideas from academic researchers, our new therapeutic uses program is aimed at producing new treatments much more quickly than starting from scratch,” Christine Colvis, PhD, NCATS’ director of drug development partnership programs, said in the release.
Chagas’ disease is responsible for more than 10,000 deaths annually, the release said. The tropical parasitic disease is the leading cause of heart failure in Latin America and an emerging infection in California. The CDC includes Chagas’ disease on its list of neglected parasitic infections and targets the disease for public health action.