AM-102: Auris Medical and KCL Collaborate in Drug Discovery for 2nd Generation Tinnitus Treatment

ZUG, Switzerland, Oct. 23, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Auris Medical Holding AG (NASDAQ: EARS), a clinical-stage company dedicated to developing therapeutics that address important unmet medical needs in otolaryngology, today announced a drug discovery collaboration with King's College London, UK. Professor David E. Thurston of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science will lead a team at King's to develop and optimize a range of specific small molecules for Auris Medical's AM-102 project. The AM-102 compounds bind to a novel, undisclosed drug target for treating certain types of tinnitus. The collaboration project draws on earlier work performed for Auris Medical by the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases at King's under the leadership of Professor Patrick Doherty and Dr Gareth Williams.

"We are very excited to continue and expand the collaboration for our AM-102 project with King's College London", commented Thomas Meyer, Auris Medical's founder, Chairman and CEO. He added: "Drawing on our research partners' unique experience and great skills in drug discovery, we expect the collaboration to take us one important further step forward towards the development of a potent second generation tinnitus treatment." From the research project Auris Medical aims to select a lead compound for further preclinical and subsequent clinical development. The drug target for AM-102 was identified and validated previously through a collaboration with another leading research institution. It is different from the drug target for AM-101, Auris Medical's late-stage investigational tinnitus treatment.
Professor Peter Hylands, Head of the Institute of Pharmaceutical Science at King's College London, said: "This latest of a series of commercial collaborations demonstrates the breadth and depth of our research capability and the great demand for our expertise in discovery and development".

About inner ear tinnitus
Tinnitus, the perception of sound without external acoustic stimulation, is a symptom common to various ear or other diseases. Inner ear tinnitus may be provoked by various injuries to the cochlea, the organ of hearing, such as overexposure to noise or inflammation. It may be short and just transitory; however, it may also become permanent. Tinnitus of less than three months of duration is considered acute, while older tinnitus is considered chronic.

Inner ear tinnitus may be only a slight nuisance, but often it has a serious impact on the ability to sleep, relax, or concentrate, or it may lead to tiredness, irritation, nervousness, despair, frustration, or even depression. As of today, there exists neither a universal standard of care for acute inner ear tinnitus, nor a truly proven, effective treatment method.

Source:
http://globenewswire.com/news-relea...nd-Generation-Tinnitus-Treatment.html?print=1



Tinnitus Talk thanks @attheedgeofscience for the following notice about our Facebook update on AM-102:
An update regarding the AM-102 development from the OP has been shared on Facebook (incl. the direct information that has been supplied by Mr. Meyer, CEO Auris Medical). If you wish to show your support, you can (also) do so via the embedded link below (like/share/comment):

 

102 is meant for chronic cases correct?

 

Hopefully they are indeed targeting the chronic phase. From that statement it does look promising but it doesn't have to be. They might have found another, perhaps better way to treat the acute phase. I guess we will get to know eventually.

 

does anyone know what is the molecule they are working on?

 

this is sad ,money is priority for those people not the sufferers

 

money makes the world go round, always has and always will.

 

Is it for acute or chronic ?

 

I bet this is, again, for acute phase, the press release says nothing about chronic t, and mentions specifically acute inner ear t. But I know nothing.

 

Acute tinnitus is already a curable condition to my opinion .

 

Get some trobalt eh?

 

I didnt know trobalt 28 years ago

 

I have had tinnitus for about 4 and a half months now, could you elaborate as to what options I have? I am not sure if this is still considered "acute" but as the window is really just an estimate, I assume anything done soon is better than later.

Note: I was signed up for AM-101 but the doc. told me that steroid injections may be an alternative in which I'd be guaranteed to get the drug within the 3 month window, so I took them, they made it worse, I was banned from the AM-101 trial.

 

I think @attheedgeofscience mentioned AM-102 was also an intratympanic injection according to inside source, can you confirm this?

 

I believe I read that as well.

 

Had an intratympanic injection of cortiosteroids, 52 days after the onset of my sensorineural hearing loss and T. The results were zero, in fact my hearing slightly worsened. They explain the risks before you have the proceedure done, but decided to roll the bones anyway.

It wasn't AM-101, but you have a very small window of opportunity, for a reversal of hearing loss with cortiosteroids, if it is even possible.

 

This tells me there is very tight competition on the tinnitus cure race.
Could it be that Auris Medical had something to do with the Autifony fiasco?
It would be in the interest of Auris that Aut00063 would be delayed (or cancelled all together) at least until AM102 has caught up. Auris has obviously invested huge amounts of money.
Whoever releases a drug first will obviously corner the market, am I wrong here?
I know this is just speculation, but at this point we have nothing to do but speculate.

 

I have never provided "inside information" from Auris Medical (I don't have any). What I have provided is information from financial sources which sometimes contain unusual/hidden information (in the sense that it is not readily available and/or not the first place someone would look for clinical trial information...).

Regarding AM-102, it was first described in the scientific literature back in 2010 by members of the Tinnitus Research Initiative. See attachments which contain very brief mentions of AM-102 and also state that it is an intratympanic application.

attheedgeofscience
25/OCT/2015.

 

All I have to say is; I hope this is for chronic sufferers. Now that Autifony has embarrassingly conducted a trial in the must capricious way possible. Let's hope, that us, chronic sufferers get a piece of the action.

 

This is exciting !

 

Yes and no. Whatever happens it is highly unlikely that any one drug will be effective for everybody (I would love to be proven wrong) so the first few drugs to market will probably all do well. I do agree that if I was a shareholder in Auris I would be very happy right now though.

 

It won't be, if it's for acute sufferers...Well, it'll be good for them, not us. Fingers crossed, that it's something we can have!

 

Well, any progress is exciting

 

I guess...I'm just worried that us chronic sufferers may lose out. We need some good news.

 

Confused at where this is at in clinical trials? Which phase? 5 years away from possibly hitting the market? 10?

 

It's in preclinical stages, so not even phase 1 yet.

"We have currently two late-stage development programs: AM-101 for the treatment of acute inner ear tinnitus and AM-111 for the treatment of acute inner ear hearing loss. AM-101's therapeutic time window beyond the acute stage is currently being evaluated as part of the TACTT3 clinical trial in Europe. With AM-111 we are planning a clinical trial in Menière's Disease.

Early-stage development programs focus on a second generation tinnitus treatment (AM-102) and a treatment for a major rhinology indication (AM-123)."

http://www.aurismedical.com/product-candidates/pipeline

 

So when and where can I sign up for the trials haha? In all seriousness I do live in the UK so presumably the trials will be held here too like for AM-101, when it gets to that stage.

 

Well, will AM-102 be out before SF? Still a long road to go for either.

 

An update regarding the AM-102 development from the OP has been shared on Facebook (incl. the direct information that has been supplied by Mr. Meyer, CEO Auris Medical). If you wish to show your support, you can (also) do so via the embedded link below (like/share/comment):