Catalyst Gets Drug From Northwestern

Catalyst Pharmaceutical has paid Northwestern University an undisclosed sum for the rights to develop a novel class of GABA aminotransferase inhibitors and derivatives of vigabatrin. Lundbeck Pharmaceuticals recently won FDA approval for vigabatrin as an epilepsy treatment. Catalyst says Northwestern’s compounds are 200 times more potent than vigabatrin, which it is developing as an addiction treatment. The scientists who invented the compounds were led by Richard B. Silverman, the Northwestern chemistry professor who discovered the active ingredient in Pfizer’s blockbuster epilepsy drug Lyrica.