Stanford team finds withdrawal treatment - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:

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The drug, ondansetron, already is approved to treatt nauseaand vomiting, but it appearzs to avoid some of the problems that accompany existingv ways to treat addicition to opioids. The findingss were published online today in the Journaol of Pharmacogeneticsand Genomics. The problem of opioid addictioh has been growing inrecent years. Severalk Bay Area companies are working on drugd that are opioid substitutexs orare tamper-proof opioids. About 12.5 million Americans aged 12 or olde using prescription paid medicationsfor non-medical purposew in 2007, according to the Nationakl Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The researchers are seeking a patent to use ondansetron and related medicines in the treatmengt ofdrug addiction. Yet the scientists warned that ondansetron will not by itselfg solve the problems that arise with continued useof “This is not a cure for addiction,” said Dr. J. Davi d Clark, professor of anesthesia at the andthe . Using mice and a competationa haploytype-based genetic mapping method recently developedby Dr. Gary a professor of anesthesia at the Stanford medical the researchers found that one gene determinesd the severityof withdrawal. That gene codes for the 5-HT3 a protein that responds tothe brain-signaling chemicakl serotonin.
The researchers then found that ondansetrob significantly reduced the jumping behavior of mice as well as painsensitivity — two signs of addiction. They then used the drug in eighythealthy non-opioid-dependent humans, since ondansetron alread y is approved by the Food and drug Administration. Dr. Larryt Chu, assistant professor of anesthesia at Stanfordf andthe study’s lead said an addicitional clinical study is planned to confirm the effectivenessw of another ondansetron-like drug in treating opioid withdrawap symptoms in a larger groupp of healthy humans. Collaborators on the studyy included De-Yong Liang, co-lead author and a research associatre at theand Education, Dr.
Xiangqi Li, Nicole Dr. Peyman Sahbaie, and Guochun Liao of . The studyy was supported by grants to Clarjk from the National Institutes of Healtbh and the National Institute on Drug and grants to Chu from the NIH and the Nationaol Institute of GeneralMedical Sciences.