AmacaThera’s Post

Thanks to RBCx for featuring AmacaThera's drug development platform and startup journey in, "Revolutionizing Pain Management: How AmacaThera is Helping to Combat the Opioid Crisis." The article includes interviews with Co-Founders CEO Mike Cooke and Chief Science Officer Molly Shoichet, and covers both the original research behind the company, led by Shoichet's lab at the University of Toronto, and the team’s progress in bringing AMT-143 to market. Here's an excerpt: Every 65 minutes and 22 seconds. That’s how often someone dies from an opioid overdose in Canada. On average, it works out to about 22 people per day. By comparison, at the height of Covid-19, the death toll in 2020 was about 11 per day. All told, opioids—a class of prescription pain-relieving medications that include heroin, fentanyl, morphine, oxycontin, among others—have killed more than 42,000 Canadians since tracking began in 2016. According to the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development), Canada holds the dubious distinction of having the second highest rate of opioid–related deaths, just behind the U.S. In the face of such brutal numbers, it’s clear that combatting the opioid epidemic requires an all-hands-on-deck approach, integrating everything from health care providers and emergency services to all levels of government. A pair of scientists-turned-startup-entrepreneurs, however, believe that the private sector, specifically their emerging biotech company, can play a critical part in solving this widespread and devastating issue. Mike Cooke and Molly Shoichet are the co-founders of AmacaThera, a Toronto-based venture offering a novel way to provide pain relief without the use of opioids. Their breakthrough product, which is currently in clinical trials, was spun out of research led by Shoichet from her lab at the University of Toronto, where she’s a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry. Cooke, who hails from the U.K., worked in the lab studying stem cells while pursuing his PhD. In 2016, the two joined forces (she as chief science officer; he as CEO) with a vision, Cooke says, of “translating their academic research into real-world products” that have the potential to herald a promising avenue for long-term opioid reduction strategies. To read the full article, click the link in the comments. #drugdevelopment #opioids #therapeutics