In a significant development, PNB VESPER, a research-based biopharmaceutical company headquartered in Kochi, Kerala has signed agreements with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), under National Institutes of Health (NIH) USA, the lead federal agency supporting scientific research on drug abuse and addiction disorders, to develop drugs for opioid and cocaine addiction disorders.

As per the agreements, NIDA will evaluate three of the molecules developed by PNB VESPER- PNB 091, PNB 081 and PNB 101 as potential drugs for the treatment of opioid and cocaine addiction-related disorders. 
 
PNB VESPER, which has completed the preclinical studies of the molecules, will soon file the Investigational New Drug applications with the US Food and Drug Administration. The company is planning to start clinical trials of the molecules in the US as soon as it completes the ongoing studies with NIDA and IND studies, which will be over before end of 2024.

Drug overdose and abuse is a major public health crisis in the USA as well as globally. The national spending on addiction-related disorders is close to $700 billion annually. Opioid addiction is a chronic disease that causes major health, social and economic problems. In the past 15 years, various initiatives were launched by the US government and spent billions of dollars to develop safe drugs for the disorders.