Concert Pharmaceuticals Enters Clinical Trials with Drug for Hot Flashes
Summary
The company combined the news with another announcement that clearly gave it confidence to move ahead: Animal tests reveal its drug can avoid bad drug-drug interactions with tamoxifen, a common breast cancer drug, according to research presented at the North American Menopause Society’s meeting in Orlando.That chemical trick allows Concert to retain the action of paroxetine against hot flashes, while minimizing its ability to block a critical liver enzyme for drug metabolism, CYP2D6.Since tamoxifen—a drug taken by millions of menopausal women to combat breast cancer risk—is metabolized by that enzyme, interfering with it could cause problems.“We believe our deuterium chemistry platform holds great promise in creating novel compounds with superior safety and efficacy as compared to existing therapies,” said Roger Tung, Concert’s CEO, in a statement.Results from the Phase I clinical trial in hot flashes are expected in the first half of 2009, so those investors will start to get a read on whether the new drug has an ability to avoid toxic drug-drug interactions in people as well as animals.