| Obesity is one of the most serious and fast-growing health problem in the European Union, and a leading cause of diabetes. In spite of the commercial and medical interest, there is a clear lack of new effective pharmaceutical treatments approved, and a limited clinical pipeline. The main barrier for approval of an anti-obesity drug is the safety requirements given the huge number of patients. We propose to overcome this barrier by discovering phenotypes and biomarkers that identify subsets of patients with safe and efficacious responses to drugs, and by identifying new indications of existing drugs with proven safety profiles. To be approved, nowadays anti-obesity drugs need to show a decrease in abdominal fat. Consequently, we focus on approaches targeting directly abdominal fat cells. In the last years only the cannabinoid CB1 receptor antagonist Rimonabant has been approved as a therapeutic agent to combat complicated obesity. Research performed with this drug has clearly revealed a role for the endogenous cannabinoid system in controlling energy homeostasis. However, its utility is limited to a restricted set of patients, still poorly phenotyped. A new phenotype and/or biomarker may identify responsive patients with good safety profiles. |
These needs are reflected in the EU VI FP research call for projects under the topic HEALTH-2007-2.4.3-6: Nutritional signals and the development of new diabetes/obesity therapeutic agents. This project will focus on the effects of alternative compounds which improve carbohydrate/lipid metabolism or modify body weight, and could be used in the development of new therapeutics in the treatment of hyperglycaemia and hyperlipidemia.
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Last Updated on Tuesday, 16 June 2009 10:24 |
The Project 
Project (223713) supported by the European Commission Framework Programme 7