NIH Awards Goldenrod Therapeutics $350,000 to Develop Novel Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder

Therapeutic Will Be Tested for Potency, Specificity, and Side Effects for the Treatment of Opioid-Use Disorder Under This Proposal

Houston, TX, July 14, 2021 – Fannin Innovation Studio announced that it has been awarded $350,000 Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to advance its novel small molecule drug candidate, 11h, for management of opioid use disorder. This drug offers the promise of improved long-term treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD) with improved selectivity that should limit side-effects associated with drugs that have similar mechanisms of action. This award will allow the company to complete pre-clinical studies on 11h, including toxicology studies to profile the drug’s safety and tolerability.

“We are tremendously pleased to receive this award and the support from NIDA and its team of reviewers,” said Dr. Elise Waldron-Young, PharmD PhD, a Principal Investigator for the project. “We look forward to putting this award towards addressing unmet needs within the treatment of opioid-use disorder.”

Goldenrod’s approach is based on targeting neuroinflammation, a process that has been associated with opioid dependence and reinforcement. In fact, inhibiting phosphodiesterases (PDE4s), a family of enzymes that function within a pathway connected to neuroinflammation, has been the focus of approaches like Goldenrod’s. However, unlike the PDE inhibitors that have been studied to date, Goldenrod’s small molecule targets a specific subtype of the PDE4B enzyme. This specificity allows Goldenrod’s lead compound, 11h to circumvent gastrointestinal side effects that arise from the use of broad, non-subtype selective inhibition of PDE4 with the goal of superior treatment tolerability.

Goldenrod’s animal studies indicate a wide potential use for the new drug. The company found that in an animal model of cocaine self-administration, animals’ cocaine use is significantly inhibited following 11h injection. “Treating opioid-use disorder is just the tip of the iceberg. Our novel approach may be pertinent to treatment of other substance-use disorders, and with this award from NIDA, we aim to also explore 11h’s applications in other substances,” said Dr. Waldron-Young.

Goldenrod Therapeutics is a virtual company within the portfolio of Fannin Innovation Studio, a Houston-based, early-stage life science management and investment company. Fannin creates and manages startups to develop internal and in-licensed programs. “The funding of this grant is an imperative step in the development of Goldenrod’s innovative approach to treatment of OUD and other substance-use disorders, which plague so many. With the support from the NIH, we aim to advance through pre-clinical testing onto clinical trials as swiftly as possible – so that we can start saving lives,” said Dr. Atul Varadhachary, M.D., Ph.D., Managing Partner at Fannin Innovation Studio.