School Spinoff NeuroGate Receives $250,000 Grant - UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy

Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry Divisions Faculty Grants and Awards Industry,

Grayson Mendenhall
January 8, 2013

NeuroGate Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical spinoff company founded by UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy professor Harold Kohn, PhD, has received a $250,000 Small Business Technology Transfer grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Founded in 2011, Neurogate has developed novel, patentable compounds for the treatment of neuropathic pain and epilepsy. Kohn says the compounds under development are highly potent in established animal models and have a novel combination of actions on sodium channels that prevent neuronal hyperexcitability, which is the hallmark of signaling in seizures and neuropathic pain.

“This grant will permit us to complete our structure-activity relationship studies designed to identify the optimal drug candidate for the treatment of seizure disorders,” says Kohn, a Kenan Distinguished Professor in the School’s Division of Chemical Biology and Medicinal Chemistry. “NeuroGate Therapeutics will advance a lead compound that displays potent activities in phamacoresistant seizure models while displaying favorable properties in pharmacokinetic and neurotoxicity assays.”