Copy pasted from a website reviewing raptor pharmaceuticals while researching a bit... Makes me very discouraged about convivia :(
"Convivia is taking a drug that is already on the market for specific types of alcohol poisoning and using it as a treatment for Asian Flush. The drug, 4-methylpyrazole, does work: it is already on the market as a treatment for antifreeze and/or methanol poisoning. It blocks the enzyme responsible for converting the alcohol to the aldehyde, so the result is that prevents the ethanol from being broken down. The reduces the build-up of acetaldehyde, a by-product of ethanol processing, which is what causes Asian Flush. However, the flip-side effect is that it keeps ethanol floating around in the subjects’ bodies for an extended period of time, which effectively causes people to be more drunk—the impact depending on the dosage of 4-methylpyrazole. The better it works, the longer the patient’s exposure to the side effects of extended ethanol presence in their system, and the more intoxicated the patient would become.
We believe that, as a result of this particular side-effect as well as the fact it’s a gimmicky drug designed purely for treating the results of a vice known to carry negative side effects, the drug will never be approved. This is likely why RPTP decided not to continue past Stage 2a trials with 32 clients, and instead decided to focus on out-licensing the drug. In the past several years, RPTP has only succeeded in licensing it out to one company, Uni Pharma, in 2010, and Uni Pharma appears to have abandoned it. The Uni Pharma website (www.uni-pharma.com) lists its pharmaceutical partners, and RPTP is conspicuously absent. Likewise, Convivia is conspicuously absent from Uni Pharma’s list of products. Since announcing the licensing deal with Uni Pharma in June 2010 covering Taiwan with the option of South Korea as well, there have been no further press releases from either company concerning the drug.