Empowered Patient Podcast Applying Allosteric Modulator Pharmacology to Treat Dyskinesia and Other Movement Disorders with Tim Dyer Addex Therapeutics
Tim Dyer is the Co-Founder and CEO of Addex Therapeutics, which is focusing on the pharmacology known as allosteric modulation. This emerging class of small molecule drugs known as allosteric modulators is being explored for treating central nervous system and neurologic disorders, particularly movement disorders like dyskinesia associated with Parkinson's and dystonia. Addex did not invent allosteric modulation but is pioneering the screening technologies to find these difficult to locate molecules.
Tim explains, "In the conventional world, which people probably know a lot about, are the orthosteric agonists and antagonists. These molecules are binding to the active site. The way to understand, in simple terms, the difference between an allosteric and an orthosteric drug is to use an analogy of the dimmer light switch."
"If you think about the dimmer light switch, you're initially turning the light on-- that would be the orthosteric agonist. Turning the light off would be the orthosteric antagonist, and what Addex is, is the dimmer. We leave the body in charge of turning the light on, so to speak, and then the Addex, allosteric modulator, if it's a positive modulator, we are really turning up the intensity of the light. If it is a negative modulator, we are turning down the intensity, so we're really modulating the intensity of the signal."
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