http://finance.individual.com/display_news.asp?doc_id=CT2001239b8992&page=news
August 27, 2001 11:01am
SALT LAKE CITY, Aug 27, 2001 (BW
HealthWire) -- Salus Therapeutics Inc. today announced that the company
has received a $750,000 Phase II Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
grant award from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
of the National Institutes of Health.
This award will support the company's
multiple sclerosis drug discovery program. Duane E. Ruffner, Ph.D., co-founder,
senior vice president for research of Salus will be the principal investigator
on the project.
The Multiple Sclerosis Foundation
estimates that 350,000 to 500,000 people in the United States are afflicted
with Multiple Sclerosis (MS) with 8,000 new cases reported annually. The
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke estimates the annual
costs of MS in the United States is in excess of $2.5 billion.
More important than the monetary
costs are the immeasurable costs in human suffering. The symptoms of MS
include, abnormal fatigue, impaired vision, loss of balance and muscle
coordination, slurred speech, tremors, stiffness, bladder and bowel problems,
difficulty walking, short-term memory loss, mood swings, and in severe
cases, partial or complete paralysis.
"Currently there are no truly effective
therapies for this neurodegenerative disease, and those available produce
severe side effects," said Dr. Dinesh Patel, co-founder and chairman. "Salus
will use its novel technology to identify nucleic acid-based therapeutics
for the treatment of this debilitating disease," he added.
"The company's focus on nucleic acid-based
therapeutics allows for the development of drugs with greater specificity
than can typically be achieved with traditional small molecule pharmaceuticals.
The recent investment by a large pharmaceutical company in a leading antisense
company reflects growing interest in antisense drugs as important new therapeutics,"
said Salus' president and CEO, Richard K. Koehn, Ph.D.
Salus Therapeutics, a privately held
biotechnology company located in Salt Lake City, is focused on the research
and development of nucleic acid-based therapeutics, including antisense
and gene therapy drugs. The company's technology, allows the rapid identification
of "optimal" antisense targets on any gene of interest.
Salus has also developed new compounds
for the delivery of antisense drugs using a variety of patented polymeric
carriers that are biocompatible and non-toxic. Salus will use this technology
to identify targets on a variety of disease related genes and deliver oligonucleotide-based
drugs.
In addition to MS, the company is
developing products for the treatment of cystic fibrosis, inflammatory
disease, diabetes and cancer.
CONTACT: Salus
Therapeutics Inc., Salt Lake City
Copyright (C) 2001 Business Wire
Source: Business Wire
Richard K. Koehn, 801/983-0338
Dinesh C. Patel, 801/983-0338
Fax: 801/983-0342