Stroke: New drug repairs brain damage in the US

The University of Cincinnati is witnessing a new medicine able to repair the damage caused by heart attack. The drug is named NVG-291-R and has led to the recovery of the nervous system with relatively functional recovery. All experimented with a guinea pig that had suffered a major stroke.

Most of the current therapies are primarily aimed at reducing the early damage from stroke. However, our group has focused on neurorepair as an alternative and has now shown that treatment with NVG-291-R results not only in neuroprotection to reduce neuronal death, but also robust neuroreparative effects. The only drug currently approved by the FDA for the treatment of stroke does not repair the damage and must be given within 4.5 hours of the onset of the stroke. Most therapies under investigation must be applied within 24-48 hours of the onset of a stroke. A product that repairs stroke damage even a week after the onset of symptoms would change the paradigm for stroke treatment.

Agnes (Yu) Luo, associate professor at the University of Cincinnati and senior author of the study

It turned out that this drug is still effective even a week after the stroke. A lecturer and co-author of the study, Jerry Silver, testified that the drug repaired the damage. He made new ones neuronal connections and improved the path of neurons toward the damaged area.

This strong plasticity is an excellent confirmation of the same powerful mechanisms that we and other researchers have been able to demonstrate with NVG-291-R in spinal cord injury.

Jerry Silver, lecturer and co-author of the study

The pharmaceutical company that owns the worldwide rights to the new drug is NervGen Pharma. The brand supports research into the self-healing functions of the nervous system. Meanwhile, the drug is being tested on healthy individuals. In the future, the new drug will also launch application trials in patients with spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer’s disease.