Adamis Pharmaceuticals Announces NIH Grant Funding for the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder

SAN DIEGO, June 26, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Adamis Pharmaceuticals Corporation (NASDAQ: ADMP), a commercial-stage biopharmaceutical company, today announced that its wholly owned subsidiary DMK Pharmaceuticals Corporation was the recipient of a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse And Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to support the development of a novel bifunctional small molecule for the treatment of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) (#R41AA030226).

Different types of drug addiction fall under the umbrella term of substance use disorders or SUD. Physicians have a better understanding of SUD and given recent research findings we now know that these conditions are treatable with effective medical interventions.¹

“Our mission at Adamis Pharmaceuticals is to become the market leader on interventions for substance use disorders,” said Eboo Versi, MD, PhD, newly appointed CEO of Adamis Pharmaceuticals. “We already have an approved product (ZIMHI) and a clinical stage product candidate (DPI-125) for addressing the opioid crisis, but we also want to expand our development portfolio to include other SUD treatments in areas of high unmet need such as AUD. We had previously stated our goal was to continue getting non-dilutive funding from the government and this funding from NIAAA clearly helps to further this goal. The aim of this funded early-stage project is to use gold-standard preclinical assays to vet Adamis’ newly acquired molecules that possess the bi-functional attributes hypothesized to reduce excessive alcohol use. Given our library of about 750 novel small molecules, we have the ability to investigate several drug candidates to identify the best one to progress into clinical development.”

Like the opioid crisis, the national impact of alcohol use disorder continues to worsen. The pre-pandemic estimate of the cost of excessive alcohol use to the U.S. economy was $250 billion a year²; the social isolation and strain of the pandemic has exacerbated the severity of this problem. AUD affected 29.5 million Americans over the age of 12 in 2021³ and co-use of alcohol continues to be associated with opioid overdose deaths. Adamis recognizes the urgent, unmet need to address the paucity of therapeutic options for patients dealing with AUD.