Wellcome awards £2.8M seed funding for novel beta blocker

Seed funding

The Wellcome Trust’s Seeding Drug Discovery programme has awarded £2.8 million to researchers at Nottingham University to develop a new suitable for heart disease patients currently unable to take beta-blockers.

Most heart disease patients have their symptoms effectively managed with beta-blocker drugs that inhibit the effects of adrenaline, thus preventing the heart from too hard. However, a major side effect of beta-blockers is that they make symptoms of asthma and other breathing problems worse, so patients who also suffer from respiratory conditions are prevented from taking them.

The scientists will use the funding for the further development of a modified beta-blocker they have discovered that will treat heart disease and angina without exacerbating any underlying respiratory problems. Wellcome set up the Seeding Drug Discovery programme at the start of 2007 to fund promising drug programmes that are not advanced enough to attract investors to the point where they are of commercial interest.

Jill Baker from the School of Biomedical Sciences said the modified beta-blocker will cause less wheezing and shortness of breath. “[It should] be able to be given safely to the hundreds of thousands of patients with both heart and lung diseases. Furthermore, because it will have so few side effects, it has the potential to become the beta-blocker of choice for all heart patients.”

Ted Bianco, Director of Technology Transfer at the Wellcome Trust, said beta-blockers are known to save lives in patients with heart disease, so making them safe for those with a respiratory disorder as well is a clinical imperative. “I applaud Jill Baker for questioning why beta-blockers should remain contraindicated for so many of her patients, and being stirred to correct this with an incisive programme of work. In the best traditions of medical research, this endeavour was born out of a problem encountered at the sharp end of clinical practice.”