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New Bionomics CEO explains novel social anxiety treatment
By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>
SOCIAL ANXIETY is now a great problem. It happens to about 10 percent of the population globally, particularly younger people.
Social anxiety or social phobia is a persistent fear of social and performance situations.
The most common form is fear of public speaking. It is typical for children, adolescents and young adults.
It is also prevalent because of social media. It affects people in their jobs, family gatherings or even going out shopping.
US based CEO of Bionomics, Spyros Papapetropoulos said if it’s left untreated, it will lead to a lot of complications down the road.
“It leads to social isolation, morbid depression, suicidality and even addiction,” Dr Papapetropoulos told Talking Business. 
Stepping away from ‘antidepressants’
He said there were approved treatments for social anxiety. These are typically antidepressants.
“These medications have a very slow onset of effect,” Dr Papapetropoulos said.
“It typically takes about 30 days for these medications to start working and they have to be taken on a daily basis.
“Most patients do not experience long term benefits from these treatments. Only 30-40 percent respond to these treatments.
“Another important element I need to mention is the increased risk of suicidality while you are on these treatments if you are a young individual, particularly an adolescent.”
Bionomics specializes in mental health disease drugs especially anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dementia.
Seeking ‘non-addictive non-sedating’ solutions
Dr Papapetropoulos said the ‘holy grail’ for pharma research in this area would be to find medication that was non-addictive and non-sedating.
Bionomics is now developing this sort of medication with its BNC210 product, which modulates the activity receptors that cause anxiety.
“How do we know that? We know through clinical trials,” Dr Papapetropoulos said. “There are imaging methodologies using functional magnetic imaging.”
This is done in an MRI machine.
“There is no evidence that it causes sedation, drowsiness, somnolence, fatigue and there is no evidence from the current work that it has an addicting potential.”
Dr Papapetropoulos said clinical tests of BNC210 showed it was not only effective in dealing with stress associated with public speaking but also in anticipation of the task.
“So if you look at the anxiety level of patients who participated in our trials, across the board, you see a reduction both in the anticipation of performing but also during the anxiety producing task,” he said.
Bionomics, Merck work on Alzheimer’s treatment
Bionomics also has a licensing agreement with Merck and Company for producing medication dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. It is aimed at improving cognition.
Merck funds all the research and clinical development costs and is responsible for any commercialization of any potential therapeutics.
“We have received $30 million so far in milestone payments,” Dr Papapetropoulos said.
“The total package can be up to $506 million over the years, both in milestones and royalties.”
Importantly, Bionomics now has new management – which Dr Papapetropoulos said could be totally transformative.
“We have plans to transform the company into being a leader in the anxiety space,” he said.
“We’re focusing on social anxiety disorder.
“We’re in the process of drafting a package to discuss with health authorities in the United States of the content of our late-stage program.” 
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness
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