Samaritan Pharma's SP233 R&D attracts positive attention

Nevada, USA-based Samaritan Pharmaceuticals says that an article discussing benzodiazepine receptors as potential targets for the treatment of neuropathology and neurological disorders, published in the Neuroscience Journal in December 2005, has been recognized by Lead Discovery, provider of a news update service for the scientific community, as being of special interest to the drug development sector.

The research suggests that the receptor family could be an appropriate target for new drugs and steroids used as therapeutic entities to treat neurological disorders, giving Samaritan's SP233 as an example of a newly-developed drug. The compound, which was originally developed at Georgetown University in Washington DC, USA, was licensed to Samaritan in 2004 (Marketletter September 27, 2004).

The firm says it will submit an Investigational New Drug application to the Food and Drug Administration for the drug as an Alzheimer's disease treatment by the middle of 2006.