Galleon Pharmaceuticals announced today that two abstracts involving its
lead clinical compound GAL-021 were recently recognized among the top
scientific abstracts submitted at the 2013 Society of Anesthesia and
Sleep Medicine (SASM) Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA.
GAL-021 is the first of a new class of compounds specifically created to
treat what the New England Journal of Medicine recently described
as the Perioperative Sleep Apnea Epidemic. The goal for these potential
new drugs is to increase patient safety, improve pain control and reduce
hospital costs for sleep apnea patients undergoing surgery.
The first study, under the leadership of Francis Golder, BV.Sc., PhD,
from Galleon, was called “GAL-021 Reverses Opioid-Induced Respiratory
Depression and Decreases the Severity of Central Sleep Apneas and
Obstructive Apneas in Rats.” The abstract won first place in SASM’s
category of “Best Basic Research Award.” A second study, under the
leadership of Margot Roozekrans, MD, from the University of Leiden
Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands, won second place in SASM’s “Best
Clinical Research Awards,” for the abstract “GAL-021, A New Intravenous
Selective Potassium-Channel Blocker, Reverses Opioid Induced Respiratory
Depression with no Impairment of Opioid Analgesia.”
“We are very excited to receive this recognition from anesthesia and
sleep medicine specialists for the first clinical product candidate to
emerge from our propriety platform designed to create drugs for sleep
apnea,” said James C. Mannion, Ph.D., President, CEO and founder of
Galleon. “These studies represent an important advance toward our goal
of drugs to prevent respiratory depression in sleep apnea patients
requiring surgery.
The first place basic research award recognizes Galleon’s proprietary
models of obstructive and central apnea that have allowed its
researchers to rapidly screen compounds for effects against both of the
major types of sleep apnea.”
Sleep apnea is very prevalent in the United States, yet largely
undiagnosed. Studies have shown that as many as 41% of general surgery
patients upon screening may have sleep apnea. Perioperative care of
sleep apnea patients is particularly challenging because these patients’
airways are more prone to collapse, especially when they are given
opioids and anesthetics. As a result, patients with apnea have higher
rates of respiratory complications (39% vs. 18%), increased rates of
transfer to the ICU (24% vs. 9%), and longer hospital stays than matched
controls. The risk of these complications can extend as long as 3-5 days
post-surgery.
In an article that appeared in the June 19, 2013 issue of the New
England Journal of Medicine, researchers addressed the perioperative
challenges of managing apnea patients, and the authors went so far as to
label the rate of perioperative sleep apnea in the United States as “an
epidemic.”
“In light of the increasing numbers of people living with sleep apnea,
we agree with the New England Journal of Medicine authors that
there is a high unmet need for drugs that help professionals manage
respiratoryrelated complications post-surgery,” Mannion said.
“Anesthesiologists are responding very favorably to the product profile
for GAL-021, and the drug may one day be a tool to help them manage
sleep apnea patients by protecting their airways and restoring breathing
control. The award-winning SASM abstracts are further validation of the
potential benefits a drug such as GAL-021 may provide patients, health
care providers and payors.”
About Galleon Pharmaceuticals
Galleon is the first company to build a drug discovery and development
platform that focuses on the pharmaceutical treatment of sleep apnea and
related breathing-control disorders. The company's proprietary platform
incorporates recent advances in neurobiology, molecular physiology,
respiratory medicine and medicinal chemistry. The Company has developed
proprietary models of sleep apnea and breathing control that enable a
multi-dimensional analysis of the primary causes of sleep apnea and
related conditions. For more information, please visit www.galleonpharma.com.
Copyright Business Wire 2014