A quartet of Innovate Arkansas clients is making news and taking names…
InterveXion Therapeutics (1), a UAMS BioVentures product, has “successfully completed dosing in the first human safety study of a medication to help methamphetamine users fight their addictions,” according to UAMS.
Here’s more from UAMS:
The medication is expected to significantly reduce or prevent the euphoric rush that drug users crave by keeping methamphetamine in the bloodstream and out of the brain, where the drug exerts its most powerful effects.
In the Phase I trial, 40 healthy volunteers who do not use methamphetamine received the medication over the past eight months and experienced no serious side effects.
“While we still have lots of work to do, this is a significant milestone for this research,” said Brooks Gentry, M.D., a UAMS professor and InterveXion’s chief medical officer who is overseeing the clinical trial phase. “Many experimental drugs fail during the first phase of a clinical trial, so we’re excited that we can now look forward to testing in methamphetamine users who want help reducing their meth dependence.”
When it has received final approval, the antibody will be given as an integral part of a methamphetamine user’s complete treatment program, which consists of counseling and possibly other medications to reduce craving.
NanoMech (2) has raised $2 million of a $5 million private round, the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal is reporting.
The next IA client profile in Arkansas Business — set for the Jan. 7 issue — will be ARK Challenge startup Sooligan (3).
Sooligan girls Nikka Umil and Natasia Malaihollo are officially launching their social media app at the Super Bowl, but not before making it available to UA students in January. Nikka returned recently from speaking at the AppNation conference in her home turf of California, and told us the trip went great:
Met quite a few other entrepreneurs, developers, and journalists/reporters. The panel itself went well and we received some exposure for Sooligan. I should have the video for that soon.
More on this really interesting startup coming soon in this space and, of course, in AB.
And another ARK Challenge startup, Demo Day winner MineWhat (4), received some love from Your Story this week.
Keep up the good work, everybody. And to all our readers, whose patronage we so appreciate, this is probably it from INOV8 for 2012. So, here’s wishing everyone a merry Christmas, happy holidays and safe and prosperous new year.
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