Mercaptor Discoveries Announces Preclinical Program in Epilepsy

Mercaptor Discoveries (Mercaptor), a company developing therapeutic agents active exclusively at the site of injury, announced the advancement of its preclinical program in epilepsy. The program culminates in human trials, beginning in early 2022.  Mercaptor is answering the immense need for a new approach to treating epilepsy and other Central Nervous System (CNS) disorders.

Mercaptor is developing Captons, a new class of therapeuticagents. Captons are inactive drugs that become active ONLY when encountering damaged areasinside the brain. Many drugs with documented activity against CNSdisorders—including anti-inflammatory, immunosuppressant, and anti-excitatory—can be "captonized." Captonization inactivates the drugwhile facilitating improvedtransit across the blood-brain barrier. Distributed evenly throughout the brain, exposure to damagecauses Capton activation and target engagement.

In animal studies, Captons are observed to distributeefficiently to the CNS and to undergo near-quantitative, seizure-dependent activation in areas ofstress. A recently published paper demonstrated that hydrogenperoxide, a molecule involved in activating Captons, is the trigger for allfocal seizures. If true, Captons would not only control seizures, but would bethe cure for Epilepsy.