Biotechnology company
Awakn Life Sciences Corp. (NEO: AWKN) announced on Thursday that it had acquired the exclusive rights to the data from the phase IIa Bristol Imperial MDMA in Alcoholism Study (BIMA) from Imperial College London, which has one of the world's leading psychedelics research centres.
BIMA was an Open-label safety, tolerability, and proof-of-concept study to investigate the role of MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy in treating patients with alcohol use disorder (AUD), a serious and currently poorly treated disorder, affecting 5% of the global adult population. Treatment of AUD rates are low at 16%. It was the first published study assessing MDMA-Assisted Psychotherapy as a treatment for addiction
Via
a news release, Awakn’s Chief Medical Officer and the principal investigator of the BIMA study, Dr. Ben Sessa said that drinking behavior outcomes from the BIMA phase IIa study that Awakn just acquired indicates that MDMA has the potential to be more effective at treating AUD, with only a 20% relapse rate within the first nine months.
“This compares very favourably with the current best available traditional treatments for patients’ post-detox with AUD. This data acquisition is an important step along Awakn's path to providing lifesaving MDMA treatment to the millions of people currently suffering with AUD, offering better outcomes without the exorbitant rates of relapse.”
The Toronto-based medical company also noted that this data will assist its progress by enabling a better design and more efficient execution of its clinical program.
With clinical operations, developing and delivering psychedelic medicine to better treat addiction. Awakn made news when it signed a binding share exchange agreement to acquire a 100% interest in a ketamine-assisted psychotherapy clinic in Norway called
Axonklinikken AS.
AWKN stock is up 8% this week, 26.9% on the month.