Antiepileptic drug development
Category: Current
Published Date
Written by Administrator
Conventional treatment for epilepsy is dominated by anti-epileptic medications which despite being effective in about 70% of patients are poorly tolerated and often produce unpleasant side effects. In the remaining 30% of patients these anti-epileptic medications have no effect on seizures. Together with Australian biotechnology company Bionomics Limited we are developing novel compounds that prevent epileptic seizures. We have already identified a number of compounds with great potential for further development. A number of these compounds have equal or much greater protective action than currently prescribed medications. In parallel to this discovery program we have also developed a mouse model which has a better clinical predictability than other models used for screening anti-epileptic drugs. Clinically effective anti-epileptic drugs that show no protective effect in other animal models appear to be protective in our mouse model suggesting that it is a better predictor of clinical outcomes that many other conventionally used animal models.
