InteliSpark client, Globin Solutions, Inc. receives a research grant of $249,993 from the National Institutes of Health for their project to develop a novel antidote in the treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning.
In the US, around 50,000 people visit the emergency room and at least 430 people die annually due to carbon monoxide poisoning. Those who survive often experience long-term neurocognitive impairments. The current treatment methods are either breathing pure oxygen or spending time in a pressurized oxygen chamber known as hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Yet, only 300 hyperbaric oxygen centers exist in the US which greatly reduces access and efficacy of this therapy.
Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh have spent years trying to find a better treatment method for this silent killer. Their recent discovery that high affinity heme-based molecules can remove CO from red blood cells to reverse CO poisoning led them to engineer an even better mutant version of the protein. In animal studies, the researchers found that their protein was significantly better and faster than pure oxygen treatment at removing CO. Their antidote removed CO in only 23 seconds compared to oxygen therapy which removed CO in 25 minutes.
This lab breakthrough led to the founding of the biotech start-up, Globin Solutions, Inc. in 2017. In the following year, the company raised $5 million in funding, which they plan to leverage as cost-share for project expenses in this recently awarded Small Business Technology Transfer grant. Funding will enable the research team led by Dr. Jesus Tejero Bravo, Chief Scientific Officer at Globin Solutions, to submit an Investigational New Drug (IND) application to the U.S. FDA and begin clinical trials. This novel antidotal therapy has the potential to significantly decrease the fatality rates and neurocognitive impairments caused from CO poisoning.