NRx Pharmaceuticals founder unveils potential treatment for suicidal thoughts and depression

NRx Pharmaceuticals founder and chief scientist Dr Jonathan Javitt joined Steve Darling from Proactive to discuss groundbreaking developments in treating suicidal ideation and depression.

NRx focuses on targeting the NMDA (N-methyl-D-aspartate) receptor in the brain, identified as crucial for turning off suicidal thoughts. Traditional antidepressants, which target the serotonin axis, often increase suicide risk, highlighting the need for a new approach.

Javitt told Proactive the company is approaching the clinical trial enrollment goals for its partnered product NRX-101, while opening new clinical initiatives in chronic pain, urinary tract infection, and NRX-100 for suicidal depression.

The company said the trial is near completion of enrollment of the originally-targeted 70 participants in the Phase 2b/3 trial of NRX-101. Top-line data from this cohort of patients is expected shortly after the last patient visit.

Javitt told Proactive chronic pain affects more than 50 million American adults, compared to the approximately 3 million who report thoughts of suicide on an annual basis. There has been no new non-opioid class of drugs to treat nociceptive pain in the past two decades and NRX-101 has the potential to be the first NMDA-antagonist drug to seek approval for this indication.

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