AXIM Biotechnologies has secured an additional $4 million in institutional financing to advance clinical trials of its cannabinoid therapies for multiple sclerosis (MS) and irritable bowel syndrome.

Some of the trials involve a chewing-gum therapy delivery system. The financing will let the company continue developing a patented chewing-gum-delivered therapy for pain and spasticity.

AXIM created MedChew Rx (dronabinol) as a bio-equivalent to AbbVie’s Marinol (dronabinol), an approved treatment for nausea and loss of appetite in cancer patients. A bio-equivalent is a biological therapy that has the same effect as a chemical compound.

The company is in the process of evaluating its gum-delivered THC/CBD (tetrahydrocannabinol/cannabidiol) as a treatment for pain and spasticity in MS.

AbbVie developed Marinola as a gel capsule. A shortcoming of that formulation is that only 90 percent of the drug is metabolized, or converted to a form the body can use. The process occurs in the liver.

The incomplete metabolism causes significant side effects, including impaired thinking.

AXIM designed MedChew Rx to bypass metabolism in the liver as a way of decreasing its side effects.

“This financing enables us to continue to build on the progress we have made with our cannabinoid clinical development program for indications where there are currently no effective treatments,” Dr. George Anastassov, chief executive officer of AXIM, said in a press release. “It is encouraging to see that investors recognize the potential of our robust clinical development pipeline. We are now better positioned to execute on cannabinoid research and commercialization.”

A clinical trial assessing MedChew Rx’s effectiveness in MS patients will take place at the Free University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Free University will collaborate on the study with the University of Plymouth in the United Kingdom and a U.S. university whose name has yet to be announced.

The trial will last 12 months. The results are expected to support approval applications that AXIM plans to file with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the European Medicines Agency.

Another AXIM product, CanChew, is a cannabis-based, controlled-release chewing gum that is being tested in clinical trials of patients with irritable bowel syndrome.

The $4 million in financing follows an initial round in October 2016.

• Author Details

Patricia Silva, PhD

Patrícia holds her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases from the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. She has studied Applied Biology at Universidade do Minho and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal. Her work has been focused on molecular genetic traits of infectious agents such as viruses and parasites.

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Patricia Silva, PhD

Patrícia holds her PhD in Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases from the Leiden University Medical Center in Leiden, The Netherlands. She has studied Applied Biology at Universidade do Minho and was a postdoctoral research fellow at Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Lisbon, Portugal. Her work has been focused on molecular genetic traits of infectious agents such as viruses and parasites.