NTDDS Platform

Diamyd Medical's research in the pain area consists of candidate drugs in clinical and preclinical phases that use the Company's NTDDS (Nerve Targeting Drug Delivery System) platform to administer drugs to the nervous system for the treatment of pain, such as cancer pain and diabetes pain.

Diamyd Medical is currently developing three products for the treatment of pain, NP2 Enkephalin, NG2 GAD and NE2 Endomorphin. These candidate drugs are based on treatment strategies that target the body's three most important pain signal pathways, with good potential, therefore, for the development of a competitive pain product portfolio. Research and development based on the NTDDS platform is being carried out by the Company's subsidiary, Diamyd, Inc., focusing on the development of products and treatments for pain relief.

Mechanism of action
NTDDS is a patented technology for delivering drugs directly to the nervous system, and forms the basis of Diamyd Medical's pain portfolio. NTDDS represents a new class of pharmaceutical products that delivers gene-based drugs directly to nerve cells, providing a direct effect in the cells targeted by the treatment.

NTDDS carrying the gene for a painkilling substance such as human enkephalin, is injected into the skin over the painful area, and is transported along the local peripheral nerve fibers to the spinal cord where the drug exerts its effect by stopping the transmission of pain signals from the peripheral nerves to the nerves of the spinal cord. NTDDS uses the nerve cell's own processes for continually producing the painkilling substance locally on site at the spinal cord. As the drug is gene-based, one treatment can produce a long-term therapeutic effect. NTDDS has several advantages over other pain relieving therapies, as it is nerve specific and acts locally (the treatment does not enter the bloodstream), reducing the risk of side effects. NTDDS is not integrated into the chromosomes of the host cell and does not induce an immune reaction, reducing the risk of side effects compared to other gene therapy methods.

Apart from its use in pain relief, the NTDDS technology is also targeting several other diseases of the peripheral and central nervous systems, e.g. peripheral neuropathy - a condition for which there is currently no effective treatment. Local treatment using NTDDS to deliver growth factors could prove very important clinically if it is able to protect nerve cells and stimulate their regeneration. Peripheral neuropathy is a common complication of diabetes. Erectile dysfunction (impotence) is one example of the consequences of neuropathy in men with diabetes or in men who have had prostate surgery. NTDDS could also be useful in the treatment of cancer of the nervous system, i.e. glioma, when it could be used to transport cellkilling substances directly to the malignant tumor. Glioma is a form of neurological cancer in which a malignant tumor develops from the glial cells of brain connective tissue.