"We are grateful to the QTDP program for recognizing our research as an innovative approach to finding a new treatment for chronic pain and for supporting our efforts to help improve the quality of life for the 39 million patients worldwide with pain resulting from nerve damage," stated Tage Honore, Ph.D., DSc, CEO and co-founder of Aestus. "We believe our approach to finding novel pathways to treat disorders of the nervous system and existing compounds to act on those pathways will lead the way in establishing a faster, more cost effective drug discovery process. We are pleased to receive the validation of this peer-reviewed award," added Honore.

Aestus began work to identify novel pain pathways and compounds which acted on these pathways in 2005. The pre-clinical and clinical development has been supported by NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants awarded to Aestus by the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke (NINDS). These include SBIR Phase I and II grants for over $2.5 million, which currently support the Phase 2 clinical studies. Aestus is filing an Investigational New Drug (IND) application with the Food and Drug Administration for its lead therapeutic, ATx08-001, in order to begin patient recruitment for clinical trials in the near future.

In addition to its work in pain therapy, Aestus is also researching potential novel therapies for amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease), schizophrenia, and epilepsy.

Source: Aestus Therapeutics, Inc