VANCOUVER, British Columbia, April 24, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Algernon Pharmaceuticals Inc. (the "Company" or "AGN Pharma") (CSE:AGN) (FRANKFURT: AGW0) (OTCQB:AGNPF), a Canadian clinical stage pharmaceutical development company, is pleased to announce that its subsidiary Algernon NeuroScience (AGN Neuro), along with the Centre for Human Drug Research (CHDR), will present its Phase 1 stroke study data at the Interdisciplinary Conference on Psychedelic Research being held June 6-8, 2024 in Haarlem, the Netherlands. AGN Neuro is the world's first company to investigate DMT for the treatment of stroke and its ability to promote neuroplasticity in the healing of brain injuries.
Dr. Katelijne Van der Heijden, research physician at the CHDR and study co-investigator for the DMT Phase 1 clinical trial, will present "Safety, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) administered intravenously over 6 hours in healthy volunteers."
The single escalating dose Phase 1 DMT stroke trial was conducted at the CHDR in Leiden, Netherlands. The purpose of the study was to identify the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of sub-psychedelic doses of DMT when administered as an intravenous bolus followed by a prolonged infusion of 6 hours, a period which has never been studied clinically. In addition, several pharmacodynamic measures believed to be associated with neuroplasticity, including both measurements of biochemical markers and electroencephalographic readings, were recorded.
AGN Neuro reported that the safety review committee confirmed that there were no safety or tolerability issues with the highest dose, which was able to maintain plasma DMT concentrations at targeted levels and which was below the established psychedelic dose.
The psychedelic dose of DMT was previously identified as 0.2 mg/kg by Dr. Rick Strassman, DMT researcher and author of the book DMT: The Spirit Molecule (2001) and AGN Neuro consultant, in his ground-breaking DMT human studies in the early 1990s. AGN Neuro is the first company to test DMT at single escalating concentrations with an IV dose for a 6-hour duration.
Based on the positive data from the Phase 1 DMT stroke clinical trial, the Company plans to begin a Phase 2a clinical trial in acute ischemic stroke patients in 2024.
About DMT
The decision to investigate DMT for stroke treatment was based on the ground-breaking 2020-published rat occlusion stroke study by Nardai et al showing that DMT reduced infarct volume and led to an almost full recovery of motor function 30 days after a single treatment of DMT, with statistical significance.1
This was also one of numerous pre-clinical studies that showed DMT increases brain derived neurotrophic factor ...