The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $19,302,777 Cooperative Agreement (CFDA 93.279 - Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs) to Nirsum Laboratories, Inc. to accelerate the late-stage development of NRS-033, a novel medication for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). The award will fund late-stage chemistry, manufacturing, and controls (CMC) for the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) and drug product, registration-enabling non-clinical studies, quality systems,...
The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) awarded a $23,579,701 Cooperative Agreement under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) to Ensysce Biosciences, Inc. in La Jolla, CA. The award will support the clinical development of PF614-MPAR, an opioid product with oral overdose protection. PF614-MPAR combines a trypsin-activated oxycodone prodrug (PF614) with the trypsin inhibitor nafamostat to deter abuse and provide overdose protection. The funding will enable a...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), is funding the development of a novel epigenetic regulator as a potential treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The grantee, Epivario Inc., a for-profit biotechnology research organization, will screen a new class of ACSS2 inhibitors and evaluate their efficacy in preclinical animal models of OUD. Specifically, the $275,253 award will support...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), aims to evaluate the therapeutic potential of neuropeptide S receptor 1 (NPSR1) in reducing opioid self-administration and relapse in the context of opioid use disorder (OUD). The $847,000 award, spanning from September 2024 to August 2026, will leverage well-validated preclinical animal models to assess the ability of NPSR1 agonism to alleviate the anxious...
This federal Project Grant award of $2,134,928.00 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to develop novel, brain-penetrant, small molecule biased allosteric modulators (BAMs) of the neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1) to attenuate relapse to opioid seeking in individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD). The award will validate NTSR1 as a drug target for OUD treatment and discover next-generation BAMs with improved...
This federal Project Grant award, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $2,398,820 to support research on developing safer opioid analgesics and antagonists that can help address the opioid epidemic. The principal investigators at The Washington University, in collaboration with researchers at Stanford University and the University of Florida, will use structure-based design and screening approaches to...
This $399,884 Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) aims to identify small molecule compounds that can bind to the GPR26 receptor, which is believed to be a novel target for treating opioid use disorders. The research strategy involves using DNA-encoded library (DEL) screening technology to efficiently test over 125 million novel compounds and identify high-affinity binders to GPR26 that can...
This Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), aims to develop high-precision epigenetic therapeutics for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). The $398,137 grant, awarded on May 1, 2025, will fund research by Boston Interactome LLC to identify and characterize small-molecule modulators that target protein-protein interactions within the epigenetic G9A complex. This complex plays a key role in...
This federal Project Grant award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $419,876 to conduct preclinical trials targeting the neuropeptide S (NPS) receptor to mitigate opioid taking and seeking behaviors in animal models. The goals of the project are to demonstrate proof-of-concept that NPS receptor-targeted molecules can reduce oxycodone self-administration and motivation in rats, which could inform the...
This $1,717,200 Project Grant was awarded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) under the Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279) to the University of Pittsburgh. The grant aims to identify and validate G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) expressed by prefrontal cortex somatostatin-expressing inhibitory neurons, with the goal of developing breakthrough treatments for opioid use disorder (OUD). The research will use an unbiased transcriptomics approach to identify GPCR...
This Cooperative Agreement award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under the federal Drug Use and Addiction Research Programs (CFDA 93.279), provides $11,872,077 to support the development of SBS-226, a novel pharmaceutical compound that acts as a mu-opioid receptor (MOR) agonist and delta-opioid receptor (DOR) antagonist, for the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD). The award recipient, Sparian Biosciences Inc. (doing business as Palion Therapeutics), will lead the full IND-enabling development plan and a Phase 1 clinical trial for SBS-226. This research involves collaborations with sub-awardees the University of Florida and Washington University, who will conduct preclinical studies evaluating the in vivo activity, receptor selectivity, and potential liabilities of SBS-226 and backup compounds. The overall goal is to develop a non-addictive, targeted treatment option for OUD that can ameliorate opioid withdrawal symptoms.