Virpax Pharmaceuticals announced the extension of a research and development agreement with an institute of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) related to the company’s NES100 enkephalin nasal spray for the treatment of acute and chronic pain. NES100 is based on molecular envelope technology (MET) licensed from Nanomerics for delivery across the blood-brain barrier and is delivered via a cartridge-based nasal delivery device.
According to the company’s web site, the agreement was initiated in August, 2020, not long after Virpax held a pre-IND meeting with the FDA regarding NES100. In February 2021, Virpax announced that The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) had initiated pre-clinical studies NES100, and the company later reported positive toxicology results.
Virpax CEO Jatinder Dhaliwal commented, “We are excited that this collaboration has been extended with NCATS and the NIH Helping to End Addiction Long-term (HEAL) initiative as we believe that it may help Virpax develop an effective and safe alternative to conventional opioids used by patients to manage acute and chronic pain. We believe that the NIH/NCATS collaborative agreement will enable our team to maintain momentum in both our pre-clinical and clinical development strategies.”
Read the Virpax Pharmaceuticals press release.
