Breakthrough medicines for neurodegenerative and neuropsychiatric conditions
We are rapidly developing and delivering breakthrough medicines to address the biggest challenges facing modern medicine: unmet needs in disorders of the central nervous system.
Our focus
Cavalon has established proprietary insights and drug development strategies based on an understanding of the role of membrane calcium channels in CNS diseases.
Our first therapeutic programs focus on breakthrough medicines for Parkinson’s disease and Opioid Use Disorder, two large markets with significant unmet needs. Success in these fields has been limited to date because of a lack of validated, druggable targets that are able to address the underlying root cause of neurological disorders.
Cavalon believes it has identified such a target. We have generated significant preclinical and clinical data to validate the role of the target in CNS diseases. In addition, the existence of FDA-approved drugs that have activity against our target gives us further validation of its druggability—that successful and safe medicines can be developed for it and be achieved relatively quickly in contrast to more exploratory drug discovery approaches. Using these insights, the Cavalon team plans to rapidly move our lead drug candidates into clinical studies.
Our strategy
Cavalon has established that our proprietary medicines have activity in the brain against our validated target.
Our therapeutic strategy focuses on optimizing inhibition of a key neuronal calcium channel involved in the pathophysiology of Parkinson’s disease, Opioid Use Disorder and other CNS diseases—while minimizing the potential side effects related to off-target activity against related calcium channels expressed in the rest of the body.
Cavalon is taking multiple drug development approaches to achieving this objective, including identifying orally-available new chemical entities (NCEs) with the appropriate potency and selectivity, along with improving the therapeutic potential of existing medicines with demonstrated activity against our drug target.
Our parallel approach will enable an accelerated development timeline with rapid clinical proof of concept, along with a deep pipeline of multiple high-value CNS products.
Founding Team
David O’Reilly
Co-founder &
Chief Executive Officer
Jack Nguyen
Co-founder &
Chief Scientific Officer
Jim Surmeier
Co-founder & Chair,
Neuroscience, Northwestern University
News and Media
November 2021: Cavalon and its collaborators have discovered in a re-analysis of a clinical trial funded by the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research that an optimized dose of a controlled-release formulation of isradipine, an FDA-approved calcium channel inhibitor, significantly reduced Parkinson’s disease disability and may potentially slow disease progression.
June 2021: Cavalon was awarded a grant from the Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research to identify and characterize orally-available new chemical entities against its neuronal calcium channel target.
March, 2021: Cavalon and its collaborators have demonstrated in an analysis of a NIH-funded Phase III clinical trial in Parkinson’s disease that isradipine, an FDA-approved calcium channel inhibitor, can slow disease progression when formulated and dosed appropriately to maintain high plasma concentrations in the body.
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