kinoxis
University of Sydney spinout Kinoxis Therapeutics partnered with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) to tackle major shared health challenges facing the US and Australia, including the devastating opioid crisis.
For over a decade, opioid overdose has been a leading cause of preventable death in the US, responsible for more deaths than motor vehicle accidents. In Australia, opioids were present in more than half (53%) of drug induced deaths in 2024 (AIHW).
Under the NIH HEAL Initiative® (Helping to End Addiction Long-term®) Kinoxis is developing its lead compound, the ALOX15 inhibitor KNX100, a novel molecule with potential to treat addiction and other disorders of the brain and mind.
Born out of outstanding basic research conducted at the University of Sydney, KNX100 provides a highly novel approach for treating opioid use disorder and has demonstrated potent anti-addictive properties in numerous pre-clinical models.
The NIH HEAL Initiative® was established in 2018 to accelerate scientific solutions to America’s opioid crisis. Seeing the potential in KNX100, the NIH has partnered with Kinoxis since 2019 to develop KNX100 under two NIH HEAL Initiative® grants.
Total funding was US$6.4 million, facilitating the development of KNX100 into human clinical studies, and allowing the company to complete a Phase 1, first in-human clinical study in Australia. This study demonstrated KNX100 to be safe and tolerable in healthy volunteers. When KNX100 entered this Phase 1 clinical trial in 2022, it was the only novel chemical entity in clinical development for the treatment of opioid use disorder globally.
KNX100 is currently being tested in an active Phase 2 clinical trial for the treatment of agitation associated with dementia, and Kinoxis continues to explore ways to fund further clinical development for the treatment of opioid and other substance use disorders.