Novartis Pulls Out Of Stroke Collaboration With CoCensys

Novartis has backed out of its collaboration with CoCensys over thedevelopment of ACEA 1021, the latters' compound for the treatment of stroke and traumatic brain injury. CoCensys said that "the decision was influenced by preliminary results of a recently-completed Phase I safety trial."

ACEA 1021 is a glycine site antagonist, a class of compounds which rely for their activity on the fact that simultaneous binding of glycine and glutamate are required for NMDA channel activation. Several NMDA antagonists have been developed for the treatment of stroke, but most have not proceeded too far in development due to central nervous system side effects, such as hallucinations, delirium or agitation, or cardiovascular effects.

ACEA 1021 has already been studied in a series of Phase I clinical trials, and there has been no evidence of any dose-limiting CNS effects. However, the results of the most recent trial have indicated that in some patients crystals of ACEA 1021 have appeared in the urine, which is a potentially dose-limiting effect.