Quarterly report pursuant to Section 13 or 15(d)

Government Grant

v3.24.1.u1
Government Grant
3 Months Ended
Mar. 31, 2024
Receivables [Abstract]  
Government Grant

3. GOVERNMENT GRANT

 

In July 2021, we announced that we were awarded a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, or NIDA, of the National Institutes of Health, or NIH, to evaluate the use of cytisinicline as a treatment for cessation of nicotine e-cigarette use. This initial grant award, in the amount of $0.3 million, commenced on August 1, 2021, and was utilized to complete critical regulatory and clinical operational activities, such as protocol finalization, clinical trial site identification, drug packaging, and submission of a new Investigational New Drug Application, or IND, to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, for investigating cytisinicline in nicotine e-cigarette users.

 

In November 2021, we announced that the FDA had completed their review and accepted the Investigational New Drug Application to investigate cytisinicline as a cessation treatment in this population. In June 2022, following NIH review of completed milestones, we

announced that we were awarded the next grant funding from the NIDA in the amount of approximately $2.5 million, which we have used to conduct the ORCA-V1 Phase 2 clinical trial.

 

In June 2022, we announced the initiation of the ORCA-V1 Phase 2 clinical trial. ORCA-V1 will evaluate the efficacy and safety of 3 mg cytisinicline dosed three times daily compared to placebo in approximately 160 adult e-cigarette users at five clinical trial locations in the United States. Participants were randomized to receive cytisinicline or placebo for 12 weeks in combination with standard cessation behavioral support.

From inception of the grant award to March 31, 2024, we have received the full amount of approximately $2.5 million in reimbursements from NIDA/NIH. For the three months ended March 31, 2024, we incurred $16,000 in qualifying research and development, or R&D, expenditures under the NIDA/NIH grant, which has been recorded as a reduction in R&D expense. The NIDA/NIH grant for ORCA-V1 was fully utilized in the first quarter of 2024 and we do not expect to receive any further reimbursements from this grant.

 

The grant award covered approximately half of the total ORCA-V1 clinical study costs. The Primary Investigators for the grant are our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Cindy Jacobs, and Dr. Nancy Rigotti, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Director, Tobacco Research and Treatment Center, Massachusetts General Hospital.