# Adenylyl Cyclase Type 5 Inhibition to Treat Myocardial Infarction

> **NIH NIH R44** · VASADE BIOSCIENCES, INC. · 2020 · $715,042

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
The most significant advance in the treatment of Myocardial Infarction (MI) has been reperfusion therapy, which
must be applied immediately after the MI diagnosis has been made. Despite the thousands of studies on drug
therapies designed to reduce the size of the MI, most have failed in clinical trials. Our hypothesis is that a major
reason why these drugs failed is that they must be administered before therapeutic cardiac catheterization is
performed. This significantly limits their utility in the clinical setting. The current proposal is based on studies in
the Adenylyl Cyclase type 5 (AC5) knock out mouse model, which is protected against myocardial ischemia,
obesity, diabetes and has enhanced exercise capacity and lives longer than wild type. Our preliminary data
demonstrate that pharmacological inhibitors of the AC5 enzyme have a unique advantage in that they reduce
infarct size even when administered after coronary reperfusion. We have developed a novel, more potent and
more selective AC5 inhibitor, C90, which is particularly attractive because it is a potent non-nucleoside adenine
AC5 inhibitor and also is not toxic. We have a patent pending on C90 and selected this compound for clinical
development based on efficacy, pharmacology and safety. Preliminary data indicate that C90 can reduce infarct
size when administered after reperfusion by more than 50% in a mouse MI model. The goal of this proposal is
to obtain proof-of-principle in mice, in Watanabe rabbits with atherosclerosis and in a large mammalian animal
model for infarct size, cardiac function and complete IND-enabling pharmacology, ADME and toxicology studies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9918966
- **Project number:** 5R44HL142390-03
- **Recipient organization:** VASADE BIOSCIENCES, INC.
- **Principal Investigator:** Peter Golikov
- **Activity code:** R44 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $715,042
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-09-01 → 2022-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9918966

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9918966, Adenylyl Cyclase Type 5 Inhibition to Treat Myocardial Infarction (5R44HL142390-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9918966. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*