AKIGAI will develop the non-opioid solution AKI-007 for the 1. line treatment of all neuropathic pain indications, affecting 10% of the Western population. This will be a repurposed EGFR inhibitor in a formulation and dosage that is targeted for the treatment of neuropathic pain.
A 2nd generation EGFR inhibitor that adaptively targets mechanisms underlying neuropathic pain is currently in the discovery phase.
Conventional drug development is risky, time consuming and thus costly. In certain situations, drug repurposing can be advantageous.
Drug repurposing is the use of existing drugs for new therapeutic purposes. Thus, it reduces the time, risk and costs of drug development. In Europe the term of «Value added medicines» has been used: Value added medicines – homepage | Medicines for Europe.
AKIGAI has matched its clinical and biological insight with scrutinized screening efforts to determine certain EGFR inhibitors for repurposing. This will advance our aim to make less toxic and more effective EGFR inhibitors available as fast as possible for as many neuropathic pain patients as possible.
Repurposing is underutilized due to unfortunate market protection mechanisms for certain drugs in certain situations and for certain drug owners. AKIGAI has thoroughly evaluated different options and created four layers of market protection mechanisms around our 1st generation EGFR inhibitor for the treatment of neuropathic pain.