Drug maker GW Pharmaceuticals said on Tuesday it planned to start human trials of an experimental treatment for obesity derived from cannabis.
Cannabis is commonly associated with stimulating hunger and several other companies, like Sanofi-Aventis with Acomplia, are working on new drugs that try to switch off the brain circuits that make people hungry when they smoke it.
GW Pharma, however, says it had derived a treatment from cannabis itself that could help suppress hunger.
"The cannabis plant has 70 different cannabinoids in it and each has a different affect on the body," GW Managing Director Justin Gover told Reuters.
"Some can stimulate your appetite, and some in the same plant can suppress your appetite. It is amazing both scientifically and commercially," he said in a telephone interview.
GW said it planned to start clinical trials of the new drug in the second half of this year. Medicines have to pass three stages of tests in humans before being assessed by regulators in a process that takes many years.
Sanofi-Aventis' Acomplia,
which it believes can achieve $3 billion ($4.36 billion) in annual
sales, is already on sale in Europe and it is waiting for a US regulatory
decision in April.
Several other big drug companies also already have similar products to Acomplia in clinical trials.
GW is best known for developing Sativex, a treatment derived from cannabis that fights spasticity in multiple sclerosis patients. Sativex, an under-the-tongue spray, has been approved in Canada, but has hit delays with regulators in Britain.
GW submitted Sativex for assessment by several European regulators in September, and hopes to secure approval for the UK, Denmark, Spain and the Netherlands in the second half of this year at the earliest, the company said.
