http://www.edisonpharma.com/ The Edison Pharmaceuticals Company Tue, 6 Jan 2009 01:23:18 -0800 Tue, 6 Jan 2009 01:23:18 -0800 Copyright 2007 http://www.edisonpharma.com/ editor@mysite.com webmaster@mysite.com en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss http://www.edisonpharma.com/common/images/header-h1.png http://www.edisonpharma.com/ Search on the Edison Pharmaceuticals keyword http://www.edisonpharma.com/home/search/ Meat the Team

Edison is looking for new discoveries in R & D by focusing on a class of compounds, at the laboratory, that help facilitate the controlled combustion of nutrients within the mitochondria. Also, in the clinic, we're looking for a metabolic signature in patients with mitochondrial diseases that might indicate that there's a benefit to our compounds in addition to the symptoms themselves. These two strategies, taken together, position Edison to find new discoveries to help treat these diseases in a way that's never been done before.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/58/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:41:58 -0800 Meat the Team

There are disease that only maybe less than 10 people have, and we would we be willing to try to make progress to treat those diseases that 10 people have, because it will help us treat diseases, maybe a decade from now, that millions of people have. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/59/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:07 -0800 Meat the Team

To a drug developer, there are multiple places where you can pick up the scent of where you can start to get a new drug. One of the best places you can start is making an observation about compounds that already have some preliminary effect in people. CoQ10 is just such a molecule. CoQ10 has shown to have limited, but detectable benefit, in a variety of human diseases, and is therefore an ideal starting point for a medicinal chemistry program.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/60/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:07 -0800 Meat the Team

Problems in redox can lead to disease, in several different ways. It can lead to disease directly, as it does in inherited mitochondrial diseases, where a redox problem in the electron transport chain causes generation of reactive species and the inability to produce the energy that the body needs. Redox processes are also important in secondary systems such as inflammation, where they are both used as signal mediators as well as direct effectors of the inflammatory process. This makes redox very important in diseases such as stroke, and heart attack.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/61/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:07 -0800 Meat the Team

While our clinical efforts are focused on building a better CoQ10 through redox optimization, redox optimization as a strategy extends well beyond para-benzoquinones. We've already identified a non-para-benzoquinone scaffold in our labs using this process that has nanomolar against Huntington's Disease. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/62/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:07 -0800 Meat the Team

The Q, in CoQ10, refers to the word Quinone. Quinone is the substructure of the warhead that is responsible for transferring electrons by CoQ10. Using our proprietary redox optimization technology, Edison has built the world's largest para-benzoquinone library. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/63/ Orion Jankowski Mon, 28 Jan 2013 00:40:07 -0800 Meat the Team

]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/72/ Professor Sidney Hecht, Ph.D. Wed, 28 Nov 2012 12:49:56 -0800 Meat the Team

Edison first set out to develop drugs for inherited mitochondrial dysfunction, where there's a very severe defect in electron flow. As we were working with these cells, and addressing other diseases, what we found, surprisingly, is that many different diseases that are often associated with aging, such as Huntington's disease, have very similar deficiencies in electron flow, and therefore we've been able to utilize the knowledge that we've gained from developing the drugs for the inherited mitochondrial dysfunctions, to address these other diseases of human aging. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/49/ Viktoria Kheifets Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:01:34 -0700 Meat the Team

CoQ10 has two parts to it, it has a head, and it has a tail. The redox activity resides in the head. The tail part is really to do with where CoQ10 is naturally present in the body and how it anchors to membrane. At Edison, we're improving both parts of this molecule. Some work has already been done, in medicinal chemistry, on the tail. But at Edison, we're trying to improve that even more. To improve the drug like properties of the molecule, where we might get more absorption, for example. We're also, targeting the head, trying to do medicinal chemistry around the head to see if we can change and tweak its activity, because that's important too. And we think, collectively, we can make a better CoQ10. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/57/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:01:06 -0700 Meat the Team

Redox is essential to biology. Biology is underwritten by the production of energy. At some level, all cells have to function in a way that consumes energy. And underlying the energy production, is itself a redox process which is really the movement of elecrons, electricity, if you will. That's really what it all comes down to. So all life, all cells, require energy. Therefore, redox is essential, because, it's only through redox processes that cells build up supplies of energy with which they then do work, and live. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/56/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:00:39 -0700 Meat the Team

The mitochondria are one of the most essential pillars of life. DNA is the information of life- mitochondria is what powers life. With such a fundamental, critical process to allowing life to occur, has implications across all diseases beyond just the cells that require the most energy.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/71/ William Shrader Sun, 28 Oct 2012 10:00:00 -0700 Meat the Team

In an average house, its got a service box of about a hundred amps; modern ones, if you have air conditioners, two hundred amps. So, your average house is just sort of sitting there is pulling sixty, seventy amps. Your mitochondria, across your entire body, pull about seventy amps just while your sleeping. And it does it, instead of 120 volts; it does it over one volt. So there's a tremendous amount of current that the mitochondria are producing in your body. And you can imagine that when you have that much current running through your body, that if there's a defect in that mechanism, really bad things happen. And you see that most prevalently in mitochondrial diseases, especially the ones that Edison is focusing on first, which are Neurodegenerative diseases. Neurodegenerative diseases are what happens when your body does not handle those seventy amps correctly.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/70/ William Shrader Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:59:43 -0700 Meat the Team

A molecule that might function as a redox therapeutic has to have a number of features, we think. In terms of its redox capabilities, it has to be reversible, it has to be able to act catalytically. Be able to both receive electrons, and then give them away. And that means it can recycle itself, it can go through a redox event, recycle, and go back and do it again and again and again. We also think that therapy needs to have other properties - it needs to localize to the parts of the body, or the cell, where it can do that work. And, being a drug we hope we can do as much work as possible, with a small amount of the drug, and so, we really think it's important that a redox therapy is a reversible catalyst when it comes to redox. And that differs from an antioxidant, which generally, one would agree, is usually a one-way process. It sacrifices itself in its redox event and it's not available to recycle itself, and go through the motions again. So that's really the difference between an antioxidant and a redox therapeutic in my mind. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/55/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:59:21 -0700 Meat the Team

Coenzyme Q10 is not a vitamin, it's actually made by your body and so it doesn't need to be absorbed from your diet like other true vitamins. Now, when you do take pills of CoQ10, very little of it is absorbed, it has very poor, drug like properties, and only a tiny fraction of any pill one might take actually ends up in the body, and even less actually gets to the site of action where it's really needed. Now despite this, there has been shown some clinical benefit from that small amount of CoQ10 that has been absorbed. So it's clearly quite a promising molecule, it just really needs to be improved. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/52/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:58:18 -0700 Meat the Team

Edison is currently focused on neurodegenerative and neuromuscular diseases, very closely associated with mitochondrial disease. But Edison is also interested in other diseases where redox can play a role. It's clear that redox possibly plays a role in cancer, inflammation and auto-immune diseases, and general diseases of aging. And so, it makes sense that we can leverage our expertise in understanding and perhaps apply them there too. ]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/50/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:57:54 -0700 Meat the Team

Problems in redox biology can lead to a number of diseases. Several of them are quite direct, and easy to understand. They function at the level of the electron transport chain, where redox chemistry undergoes. And, it's quite easy to connect the dots. When you see something, going wrong, something that we can study, you can see a clear outcome in the disease. Now, there are other diseases that probably have a redox event underlying or exacerbating and we think that by studying those first sets of disease, we're going to learn a lot, we'll understand how to approach the problems, and we may even be able to unpick those larger diseases, such as auto-immune disease, or cancer, and understand them from the perspective of redox biology.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/48/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:57:44 -0700 Meat the Team

It may seem a little odd, to be studying diseases of children, and say that you are treating diseases of aging. And really, it's not that odd. When you dig down into the mechanism, the biological mechanism, you see commonality between these diseases whether for syndromes of children or of old age. As a chemist, when I look at them, I see an underlying mechanism at the biochemical level of electron transport and redox balance and that follows through to the biology. So, it may seem odd at first but we really believe there are certain commonalities between these diseases, that by treating, say Friedreich's ataxia, which is essentially a syndrome of childhood, can give us great understanding into other diseases, whether it's Huntington's or classical diseases that everyone would recognize as diseases of old age.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/54/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:54:54 -0700 Meat the Team

Coenzyme Q10 has been used by clinicians to treat mitochondrial disease really ever since it was really understood what the role of that molecule was, in the body. It's clearly understood to shuttle electrons between the machinery in the redox processes of the mitochondria. So it made sense for clinicians to consider using it as a therapy to fix diseases that were understood to be failures in the mitochondrial or the redox processes. They felt by giving more of this molecule which could move electrons around, they could fix any underlying problems, perhaps based on the theory that a patient may be deficient in CoQ10 or that simply by having more of it, that would be a good thing.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/53/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:54:35 -0700 Meat the Team

Mitochondrial diseases have a neuromuscular component, quite frequently, because, the central nervous system, and muscles, require a lot of energy, and the mitochondria are all about providing energy to fuel the cellular processes. So if you have a mitochondrial disease, your energy production is impaired, and those organs that rely most heavily on that, are going to be affected most or maybe noticed, first. Those are going to be the brain, and the heart, and the muscles.]]> http://www.edisonpharma.com/company/videos/page/team/videosid/51/ Kieron Wesson Sun, 28 Oct 2012 09:54:00 -0700