National Institute on Drug Abuse Highlights need for sequestrants like Clear Scientific’s First-in-Class Methamphetamine Antidote CS-1103 in 2025 Outlook
- Clear Scientific
- Mar 11
- 2 min read
Cambridge MA | Feb 2025
In their blog entry Reflecting on NIDA’s 50th year and looking to 2025, published January 8, 2025, the National Institute on Drug Abuse indicated that there are four major areas deserving special focus for their efforts: preventing drug use and addiction, preventing overdose, increasing access to effective addiction treatments, and leveraging new technologies to help advance substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and the science of drug use and addiction.
Clear Scientific, Inc.’s first-in-class antidote for methamphetamine (meth) overdose, CS-1103, a sequestrant-based therapeutic with novel mechanism of action, is an example of research that falls under the key area of Preventing Overdose. The blog states, “We also need to continue research toward mitigating fatal overdoses... We are also supporting research on compounds that could potentially reverse methamphetamine overdoses, such as… molecules called sequestrants that bind and encapsulate methamphetamine in the body.”
There are currently no approved antidotes for stimulant intoxication. Upon injection, CS-1103 immediately binds and inactivates methamphetamine (meth), rapidly reversing its toxic effects and accelerating its clearance into urine: Remove the Cause, Remove the Effect.™ Phase 2 clinical trials for methamphetamine and fentanyl overdose are anticipated to begin in the first half of 2025.
About the Overdose Epidemic
The US overdose crisis continues unabated, with 1.9M emergency department (ED) visits and over 100,000 deaths annually. While overdose numbers have shown recent declines, rates remain staggeringly high and overdose is the leading cause of death for Americans under the age of 50. There are currently approved medications for opioid overdose, however, there are no approved treatments for overdose with stimulants or overdoses that result from drug combinations.
About Clear Scientific
Clear Scientific, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company co-founded by George Whitesides of Harvard University, is pioneering a new paradigm for treatment of conditions and diseases that involve an excess of specific compounds in the body. This approach focuses on development of highly selective, small molecule sequestrants that bind, immediately inactivate, and rapidly clear excess compounds from the body.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health project referenced in this news item is under award number 5U01DA058548-02. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
For more information, visit https://www.clearsci.com.