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here is a research project done on alda-1-

http://dolly.biochem.arizona.edu/Bioc46 … index.html

"Large pharmaceutical companies are taking advantage of the weak economy by acquiring or in-licensing selective compounds because deal terms are highly attractive due to depressed equity valuations of smaller companies."

-as in Raptor stock is undervalued right now, which I guess has an effect on licensing terms also.  Check this out, it has info on licensing pharmaceutical products: http://www.wipo.int/sme/en/documents/ph … nsing.html

-It might be good to invest in Raptor stock right now, assuming they manage to get a licensing deal with a large pharma company.  If Convivia comes out before Alda-1, which it probably will, it will reap big profits- even though Alda-1 is probably better in the long term.

http://www.physorg.com/news182439565.html

http://pda.physorg.com/enzyme-mutatedfo … 26944.html

I posted this on he Convivia thread, but I'll put it here also-

I emailed Raptor Pharmaceuticals about whether they had looked at Alda-1 (which stands for ALdehyde Dehydrogenase Activator) as an alternative to 4-methylpyrazole, an here was the reply-

"Yours is an excellent suggestion, which I, at least, had missed.  We appreciate your interest in the program.  One aspect of Alda-1 that gives very small companies pause is the expected time it would take before one could test it in humans.  One advantage of 4-MP is that it is already approved for use in humans for certain applications.  While that provides no comfort as to whether it would work in the Asian flush application, it does mean that a lot of toxicological work has already been done and risks reduced.  Alda-1, for its part, has compelling proof-of-principle that involves the actual mutated enzyme.  But from a chemist's perspective, Alda-1 looks to have some potential toxicological issues, especially for a long-term, repetitive-dosing application like Asian flush.  For example, a primary hydrolysis product of Alda-1 is 2,6-dichlorobenzoic acid, a known breakdown product of herbicides and a compound with some level of known toxicity.  As you probably already know, there are those who consider treatments for Asian flush to be enabling of alcoholism or, at a minimum, unworthy of biotechnology efforts.  The fairness of those assessments aside, they tend to increase the regulatory hurdles likely to be thrown up by the FDA, particularly with regard to long-term safety.
That said, we will keep Alda-1 in mind and thank you again for bringing it to our attention."

So, Alda-1 still has some issues and requires some more research (money), maybe there are some wealthy individuals who might be willing to contribute to the cause.  I have a feeling that in the current economy, it is difficult for small pharmaceutical companies to take risks on controversial products, regardless of the potential market (about 800 million people).  I would think that some large companies might interested in this as well, like Sapporo, Asahi, Kirin, and Tsingtao since 40% of their customer base is not purchasing their product.  Then again, many in the medical establishment think that this kind of research is not very legitimate, since it is trying to enable people to become "alcoholics". 

I disagree, since many are continuing to harm their bodies despite their alcohol intolerance, due to social factors, or not knowing about their genetic mutation.  Increasing ALDH2*2 activity should coincide with reduced rates of cancer, stress, and other health issues, even if it results in increased alcohol use.  I think there are too many physicians in Japan who point to reduced alcohol usage vis-a-vis the West as something to be proud of, whether the people themselves want it or not.

FYI here is a link to the Wikipedia article that mentions Alda-1:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ALDH2

Convivia sounds good, but I think that the real cure is Alda-1, which is a compound that was developed pretty recently to prevent damage to the heart during a heart attack.   I think it's better because it increases acetaldehyde metabolism, rather than slowing down alcohol metabolism.  If you think about it, using 4-MP, the active ingredient of Convivia, will make you much drunker than you usually would get- probably dangerously drunk after even a small amount.  So, I emailed Raptor to see if they'd considered Alda-1, and here was the reply:

"Yours is an excellent suggestion, which I, at least, had missed.  We appreciate your interest in the program.  One aspect of Alda-1 that gives very small companies pause is the expected time it would take before one could test it in humans.  One advantage of 4-MP is that it is already approved for use in humans for certain applications.  While that provides no comfort as to whether it would work in the Asian flush application, it does mean that a lot of toxicological work has already been done and risks reduced.  Alda-1, for its part, has compelling proof-of-principle that involves the actual mutated enzyme.  But from a chemist's perspective, Alda-1 looks to have some potential toxicological issues, especially for a long-term, repetitive-dosing application like Asian flush.  For example, a primary hydrolysis product of Alda-1 is 2,6-dichlorobenzoic acid, a known breakdown product of herbicides and a compound with some level of known toxicity.  As you probably already know, there are those who consider treatments for Asian flush to be enabling of alcoholism or, at a minimum, unworthy of biotechnology efforts.  The fairness of those assessments aside, they tend to increase the regulatory hurdles likely to be thrown up by the FDA, particularly with regard to long-term safety.

That said, we will keep Alda-1 in mind and thank you again for bringing it to our attention."

hope this is of some use-

it might also be why raptor is trying to do further development in asia, because it might be easier to bring to the market.

I emailed Raptor pointing out that there is another compound called Alda-1 that treats the same condition but works by increasing the activity of ALDH2, and part of his response was-

As you probably already know, there are those who consider treatments for Asian flush to be enabling of alcoholism or, at a minimum, unworthy of biotechnology efforts.  The fairness of those assessments aside, they tend to increase the regulatory hurdles likely to be thrown up by the FDA, particularly with regard to long-term safety.

So there are some people saying that an asian flush cure is unnecessary, because is helps prevent alcoholism, and this increases the amount of time it takes to find a remedy.  It probably would exist right now if it were not for this fact-

I've been reading about Alda-1, which is a recently developed compound that is designed to increase acetaldehyde dehydrogenase (ALDH) activity.  The research is being done at Stanford, and I emailed the person in charge (Dr. Mochley-Rosen), and heres the reply-

Thank you for your interest. At the moment, we continue our academic research to
determine the benefit of activating ALDH2 in both wildtype and ALDH2*2 mutant
animals. We focus on diseases where people with this mutation have a
disproportionate incidence, such as esophageal cancer (see Plos article from
last month), neurodegenerative diseases, higher ethanol intoxication and of
course nitroglycerin insensitivity (see Stammler's work). Since Alda-1 increases
the biological activity of both wildtype and mutant - the potential of this
drugs as enhancor of the natural mechanism of cytoprotection is quite large.
Lots to do, as you can see. Hope this addresses your question.

From what I've read, this is still going to take a while, but from what I know, this is a real solution.  Both H2 antagonists and the Convivia drug currently being developed by Raptor work by slowing down alcohol metabolism, whereas Alda-1 (which is being developed primarily for heart attack damage) works by increasing ALDH activity.  The biggest advantage is that it specifically increases the activity of mutant ALDH, which is the main issue.  It seems to be a long time in the making, though-

alda-1 seems like a great idea, but it sounds like its going to be like 5-10 years before it comes out.  but this solution, speeding up ALDH2, is the perfect way to solve the problem.  Convivia, which is being researched right now (see the topic in this forum on convivia), slows down ADH, or the conversion of ethanol to acetaldehyde, which is different from alda-1, but it might be coming out much sooner.  from internet research it sounds like convivia should be going into a phase IIb trial pretty soon, which is testing a "final reformulated product".  but there haven't been any updates since the beginning of the phase IIa trial, which was a dose-ranging study, so we don't even know if they were successfull at that stage, or if they decided to delay the program.  all i know is that 4-methylpyrazole (the active ingredient in convivia) is already approved by the FDA for methanol poisoning, so apparently convivia is likely to come into the market relatively quickly.

cant find any status updates after the phase IIa study, which started in April and ended in July.  ive read articles though that say that they are trying to push the product through the developement chain because 4-methylpyrazole, the compound used in convivia, is already approved by the FDA.  the only difference is in usage, since it is currently used for methanol poisoning.  i wonder how it is going too-

yeah i agree and ive tried it but it doesnt work very well for me.  at all.  i dont know if the problem is dosage, absorption, or some kind of chemistry going on in the body that is preventing the NAC from neutralizing the acetaldehyde quickly