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news.Neuromed Pharmaceuticals and Merck & Co. have decided to discontinue development of their Phase II compound for the treatment of chronic pain.
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Neuromed said that the drug, MK-6721, does not demonstrate the ideal pharmaceutical characteristics considered necessary to advance the compound further in development. However, a joint research collaboration will continue to evaluate alternate, earlier stage, therapeutic candidates.
No serious adverse events with MK-6721 were observed in clinical trials in which up to a 1600mg single dose was administered.
“We are encouraged by what we’ve learned from MK-6721 and are continuing our productive collaboration with Merck with a focus on improving the pharmaceutical properties of our compounds to produce a best-in-class pain treatment,” said Dr Christopher Gallen, president and CEO of Neuromed.
“We believe the N-type calcium channel is an important target for the development of new pain treatments and our studies to date support that. Our collaboration with Merck has resulted in the discovery of additional N-type calcium channel blockers that we continue to advance towards clinical trials.”
N-type calcium channel blockers represent a novel class of analgesics that are designed to disrupt the pain signal to the brain.