LONDON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lightlake Therapeutics Inc. (OTCBB: LLTP - News) (the “Company” or “Lightlake”), an early stage biopharmaceutical company developing modern addiction treatments based on its expertise using opioid antagonists, announced today that it is seeking to collaborate with Europe's largest centre for research and post-graduate education in psychiatry, King’s College London Institute of Psychiatry, to develop a new treatment for opiate overdose.
Lightlake has agreed to liaise with Professor John Strang, Head of Addictions at King’s’ Institute of Psychiatry (IoP) and Director of the National Addiction Centre who has pioneered the approach of Take-Home Emergency Naloxone to prevent heroin overdose deaths. It is now established that there are times of particular risk, such as on release from prison in the UK, where prisoners with previous heroin addiction histories are over seven times more likely to suffer a drug-related death during the first two weeks after their release, and one in 200 released prisoners in the UK with a history of heroin use die from a drug-related death within four weeks of re-entering society. Lightlake hope to develop a new naloxone spray suitable for heroin overdose resuscitation, and which may be particularly suitable for administration by a parent or other family member.
Dr. Roger Crystal, Chief Executive Officer of Lightlake, commented, “We are honored to work towards partnering with the IoP in a concerted effort to create a novel treatment for opiate overdose, which is growing in prevalence worldwide due not only to the availability of street heroin but also due to the rising dependency on prescribed opioid painkillers. Recent studies show that heroin-related deaths account for around eight percent of deaths in individuals between the ages of 15 to 44 in the UK alone.”
About Lightlake Therapeutics, Inc.
Lightlake Therapeutics Inc. is a developing biopharmaceutical company aiming to build a platform of biopharmaceutical solutions to common addictions and related disorders. Currently, the Company is focused on providing a safe, effective and simple treatment for patients who are obese or overweight as a result of Binge Eating Disorder in addition to those patients suffering from Bulimia Nervosa. Lightlake recently acquired patents that will allow it to widen its product pipeline to address patients with addictions to opioid painkillers, methadone, cocaine and amphetamine. The Company anticipates launching a development program for each of these purposes in the future.
About King’s College London
King's College London is one of the top 30 universities in the world (2011/12 QS international world rankings), and was The Sunday Times 'University of the Year 2010/11', and the fourth oldest in England. A research-led university based in the heart of London, King's has nearly 23,500 students (of whom more than 9,000 are graduate students) from nearly 140 countries, and some 6,000 employees. King's is in the second phase of a £1 billion redevelopment programme which is transforming its estate.
King's has an outstanding reputation for providing world-class teaching and cutting-edge research. In the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise for British universities, 23 departments were ranked in the top quartile of British universities; over half of our academic staff work in departments that are in the top 10 per cent in the UK in their field and can thus be classed as world leading. The College is in the top seven UK universities for research earnings and has an overall annual income of nearly £450 million.
Of note, King’s College London’s Institute of Psychiatry is a major contributor to the N-ALIVE study, a randomised trial of take-home Naloxone to prevent heroin overdose deaths post-prison release: http://www.kcl.ac.uk/iop/depts/addictions/research/drugs/N-ALIVE.aspx
King's has a particularly distinguished reputation in the humanities, law, the sciences (including a wide range of health areas such as psychiatry, medicine, nursing and dentistry) and social sciences including international affairs. It has played a major role in many of the advances that have shaped modern life, such as the discovery of the structure of DNA and research that led to the development of radio, television, mobile phones and radar. It is the largest centre for the education of healthcare professionals in Europe; no university has more Medical Research Council Centres.
King's College London and Guy's and St Thomas', King's College Hospital and South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trusts are part of King's Health Partners. King's Health Partners Academic Health Sciences Centre (AHSC) is a pioneering global collaboration between one of the world's leading research-led universities and three of London's most successful NHS Foundation Trusts, including leading teaching hospitals and comprehensive mental health services. For more information, visit: www.kingshealthpartners.org.
The College is in the midst of a five-year, £500 million fundraising campaign – World questions|King’s answers – created to address some of the most pressing challenges facing humanity as quickly as feasible. The campaign’s three priority areas are neuroscience and mental health, leadership and society, and cancer. More information about the campaign is available at www.kcl.ac.uk/kingsanswers.
Safe Harbor
This press release contains forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or our future financial performance and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our or our industry's actual results, levels of activity, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, levels of activity, performance or achievements expressed, implied or inferred by these forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as "may," "will," "should," "could," "would," "expects," "plans," "intends," "anticipates," "believes," estimates," "predicts," "projects," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of such terms and other comparable terminology. These statements are only predictions based on our current expectations and projections about future events. You should not place undue reliance on these statements. Actual events or results may differ materially. In evaluating these statements, you should specifically consider various factors. These and other factors may cause our actual results to differ materially from any forward- looking statement. We undertake no obligation to update any of the forward-looking statements after the date of this presentation to conform those statements to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, except as required by applicable law.