DETROIT—The Michigan Technology & Research Institute (MITRI), in Ann Arbor, Mich., and Wayne State University have partnered to organize a drug development company based on several neurosciences research platforms from the university's Eugene Applebaum College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

Major depression is a disorder posing significant health problems to a large number of patients worldwide. After cardiovascular disease, depression is considered the second most debilitating disease in the world. "Drug therapies currently on the market for treatment of depression have many shortcomings," said Dr. Aloke Dutta, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at WSU and inventor of the new technology. "A number of the therapies don't work in a significant number of patients, and some treatments work at first, but later become ineffective." 

According to Dutta, currently approved treatments for depression do not address the dopamine component needed to interact with the relevant targets in the brain. The polyfunctional molecules discovered in Dutta's laboratory interact simultaneously with norepinephrine, serotonin and dopamine systems in the brain, and exhibit activity in animal models that indicate antidepressant activity.

"One of the research goals will be to study whether such novel triple uptake inhibitor molecules have more desirable therapeutic profiles as antidepressant agents compared to the current existing drugs and whether their chronic exposure might sustain effectiveness and lower the incidence of side effects," said Dutta. 

"The WSU technology platforms integrated in this company have great promise to make a difference in the quality of life of patients with depression and to address unmet medical needs in the neurosciences therapeutic area," said Dr. David Pegg, MITRI Technical Center president. "The senior scientific researchers at MITRI have many years of experience in strategically taking new drugs to the marketplace, and these drugs have helped improve the lives of people with multiple disease conditions including depression, pain, epilepsy, inflammatory conditions, heart disease and cancer."