Sinntaxis receives Vinnova funding for new stroke drug

Tomas Eriksson, CEO of Sinntaxis

Sinntaxis is developing a drug for treatment of stroke that may revolutionize rehabilitation of stroke patients. The company will now receive SEK 900,000 from Vinnova’s call for proposals for “Innovative Startups step 2 autumn 2020” to continue to prepare the project for clinical trials. The company is a member of SmiLe Incubator.

Stroke is one of the major public health challenges that annually afflicts 27,000 people in Sweden and 14 million worldwide. In Sweden alone, strokes cost society SEK 16 billion annually. Among survivors, one third suffer from lifelong disabilities that affect areas such as speech, thinking, memory and mobility. A new treatment that, combined with rehabilitation, improves the recovery of the brain following a stroke would entail significant improvement in the care of stroke patients and could reduce both the burden on relatives and the costs to society.

Currently, stroke victims must present for treatment early to reduce the harmful effects of the stroke. With the Sinntaxis drug candidate this therapeutic window could be extended. The drug candidate is based on a discovery made by Professor Tadeusz Wieloch and his research group at the Laboratory for Experimental Brain Research at Lund University.

Professor Wieloch's group has recently shown in animal studies that treatment with molecules that block the glutamate receptor mGluR5 can significantly improve recovery of mobility, even when treatment is initiated several days after the stroke. The company has acquired the rights to a substance, originally developed by Astra Zeneca, which has already been clinically tested for other indications. Consequently, development of the Sinntaxis drug candidate is expected to take less time than usual.

“We are extremely pleased and grateful for this Vinnova funding. It means that we can take important steps forward to be able to enter clinical trials with our drug candidate,” says Tomas Eriksson, CEO of Sinntaxis.

For more information, please contact: Tomas Eriksson, te@sinntaxis@com, +46 709183850