Los Angeles startup Kalytera Therapeutics is taking the high out of the THC – refining cannabinoids so they can have broader therapeutic applications in conditions like osteoporosis, Prader-Willi syndrome, PTSD, obesity and weight loss associated with cancer.
Kalytera just raised $500,000 in seed funding, according to a regulatory filing.
There’s a litany of potential applications for cannabinoids as therapeutics – epilepsy, pain management and cancer-associated weight loss being the most accepted. The underlying idea of Kalytera is to modify cannabinoids, or the molecules that regulate the endocannabinoid system, to get rid of the psychoactive properties of the drugs.
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That way, the therapeutic’s focus is primarily on the condition itself. Kalytera’s candidates are still preclinical for osteoporosis, Prader-Willi and obesity, but it’s nearing phase 2 trials for cancer-associated weight loss.
The startup’s chaired by Israeli organic chemist Raphael Mechoulam, who is credited by some as the “Grandfather of Marijuana.” He was, after all, the first scientist to isolate THC as a compound back in the 1960s – back when the NIH was saying that “marijuana is not an American problem,” Vocativ writes in a profile on the scientist.
