Notice Number: NOT-AA-19-021

Key Dates
Release Date: August 15, 2019

Issued by
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Purpose

Background:

NIAAA is issuing this Notice to publicize its program for evaluating high quality drugs in preclinical models for their potential as treatments of Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD). Discovery of potential drug targets for AUD medications arises from many sources including NIAAA-supported investigators, NIH initiatives (e.g., LINCS, HEAL) and pharmaceutical company research. To perform relatively rapid assessments of reference and proprietary lead drugs, NIAAA currently supports blinded preclinical efficacy evaluation in standardized and validated rodent models of AUD through contracts. Testing capacity is limited to testing 3-4 drugs per year.

Program Information:

Drugs are submitted to NIAAA from industry and academic partners through Material Transfer Agreements. In addition to considering general pharmacological properties (e.g., brain penetrance, pharmacokinetics), priority is given to novel approaches to targeting negative affective states motivating excessive drinking and to novel targets previously unrecognized or understudied for the treatment of AUD. Functional alcohol antagonists, targets aimed at blocking the rewarding effects of alcohol, therapies eliciting noxious states in response to drinking, and narrow variants of clinically validated AUD medications are deemed low priority for this program.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Mark Egli, Ph.D.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
National Institutes of Health
Email: Mark.Egli@nih.gov
Web: http://www.niaaa.nih.gov