Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute have created an injectable solution that can reverse the effects of a life-threatening cocaine overdose. While the solution has only worked in mice at this point, researchers are optimistic the drug will be approved for human clinical trials.
The dangers of cocaine
Cocaine is involved in more than 400,000 emergency-room visits and about 5,000 overdose deaths each year in the United States. If this antidote were available it could be injected in an emergency situation and keep the drug from being fully absorbed in the blood stream, which in turn protects vital organs like the heart and brain.
“This would be the first specific antidote for cocaine toxicity,” said Kim Janda, PhD, senior author of the report. “It’s a human antibody so it should be relatively safe, it has a superior affinity for cocaine, and we examined it in a cocaine overdose model that mirrors a real-life scenario.”
Janda says cocaine is a leading cause of illegal-drug overdoses in developed countries; it can cause hyperthermia, irregular heartbeats, seizures and death.
Familiar work
Janda and his laboratory colleagues have been developing candidate vaccines against cocaine, heroin, nicotine, and even Rohypnol, the “date-rape” drug.
Janda and his colleague, Jennifer B. Treweek, are now trying to find ways to produce their antidote economically and in large quantities.
“If we can do that, then there would be no reason not to push it into clinical trials,” Janda said.
More than just an emergency treatment
Janda believes this solution will have lingering effects and help cocaine users fight the urge to return to the drug after an overdose.
“A lot of people that overdose end up going back to the drug rather quickly,” Janda said, “but this antibody would stay in their circulation for a few weeks at least, and during that time the drug wouldn’t have an effect on them.”
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