A Cambridge UK pharmaceutical company is planning to exploit the discovery of a new component of cannabis that could lead to better treatments for epilepsy.
The work at Reading was funded by, and performed in collaboration with, GW and Otsuka Pharmaceuticals a strategy inspired by GW executive chairman, Geoffrey Guy.
The new breakthrough stems from a collaboration between GW and Otsuka signed in July 2007 and which runs until next summer. They agreed to jointly research a range of GW cannabinoids as potential new drug candidates in the field of Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders and oncology.
Dr Stephen Wright, R & D director at GW Pharmaceuticals said: These results further underscore the potential of naturally-derived cannabinoids as medicines to treat a broad range of diseases.
GW has established a track record of discovering and commercialising such compounds with Sativex now on the market for treating spasticity associated with multiple sclerosis and in late stage development for the treatment of cancer pain.
Our research into CBDV has consistently produced highly promising results demonstrating its potential as a novel anticonvulsant and GW hopes during 2013 to advance CBDV into human clinical trials.
In the Reading study, cannabidivarin strongly suppressed seizures in six different experimental models commonly used in epilepsy drug discovery.
Cannabidivarin was also found to work when combined with drugs currently used to control epilepsy and, unlike other cannabinoids such as THC, is not psychoactive and therefore does not cause users to feel high.
Dr Ben Whalley, who is leading the study at the University of Reading, said: This is an enormously exciting milestone in our investigations into non-psychoactive elements of cannabis as treatments for epilepsy.
There is a pressing need for better treatments for epilepsy. Its a chronic condition with no cure and currently in around one third of cases, the currently available treatments do not work, cause serious side-effects and increase fatalities.
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Cannabis discovery hope for epilepsy treatment