Acquisition Has Love Pharma’s Naltrexone on NIH Shortlist to Address Unmet Medical Need—Treatment for Long Covid

NEW YORK, NY, Nov. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Love Pharma Inc. (CSE: LUV) (FSE: G1Q0), an international mental health and sexual wellness company, has been explicit about its plans to develop a portfolio of innovative products encompassing transdermal drug delivery applications in the addiction space, and a recent non-binding letter of intent to acquire Naltrexone Therapeutics Inc., would immediately bolster the company’s footprint in that space.  At the same time, Naltrexone Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical company with significant Intellectual Property (IP) related to the transdermal delivery of the well-known FDA-approved drug “Naltrexone,” could potentially expand Love Pharma’s reach into additional therapeutics and land the company at the leading edge of addressing an unmet medical need. 

When completed, it’s an acquisition that would add a promising application for the treatment of post-COVID conditions or “long COVID” to Love Pharma’s portfolio.¹  Long COVID is a condition that can include a wide range of ongoing health problems, including fatigue, shortness of breath, insomnia, joint pain and memory loss, which according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), can last weeks, months, or even longer.  Currently, there is no treatment for the lasting symptoms of COVID-19, so it’s a clear unmet medical need in a large and growing patient population. 

The significance of the deal is the considerable IP that Love Pharma would gain related to the transdermal delivery of Naltrexone.  Why is this significant?  Well, Naltrexone is approved to treat opioid and alcohol addiction at 50 milligrams per dose.  However, the drug has shown promise at very low doses as a potential treatment that can reverse some of the underlying pathology that is driving symptoms related to long COVID.¹  And while several generic manufacturers sell the 50 milligram pills, low-dose Naltrexone must be acquired through a compounding pharmacy, which makes it more difficult to access and limits the drug’s availability. 

Enter Love Pharma and the transdermal drug delivery IP it would own in a Naltrexone Therapeutics acquisition.  The company’s transdermal delivery IP could offer a patient friendly, low-dose delivery solution that can be made readily available to patients.  If low-dose Naltrexone continues to show promise in studies for long COVID,¹ a transdermal patch would be the solution to delivering the drug in a low-dose formulation perfected in studies.

Love Pharma’s Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Zachary Stadnyk, commenting on the benefits of transdermal drug delivery said, “Transdermal delivery can provide patients with a convenient, safe, and regulated dosage of Naltrexone that allows for greater bioavailability, steady absorption, ease of use, and fewer gastrointestinal tract (GI)-related side effects that are common with oral dosages currently available, the latter of which we believe has the potential to expand the market for Naltrexone.”

Globally more than 40% of COVID-19 survivors currently have or have had long-term effects after recovering from the virus, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Michigan.  Today, the World Health Organization reports that there have been 628,035,553 COVID infections worldwide, so based on estimates from a report produced by the National Library of Medicine which states, “up to 37.7% of COVID patients experience symptoms beyond 12 weeks after infection,”² we can extrapolate that there is a significant market need for treatment(s).  In the United States alone, the CDC reports that nearly 1 in 5 American adults, who have had COVID-19, also dealt with long COVID. 

To combat this unmet medical need, the U.S. government is taking steps to fund more research and help those affected by long COVID, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that launched the $1.15 billion “Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery” or “RECOVER” Initiative.

Acquiring Naltrexone Therapeutics should be regarded as blockbuster news for both Love Pharma and its investors given the NIH has short-listed Naltrexone as one such treatment to be tested under the RECOVER Initiative.¹  In addition to being on the NIH’s short list, there are also four clinical trials to test Naltrexone in hundreds of long COVID patients currently planned.¹

Love Pharma obviously recognizes the potential opportunity that producing and delivering tens of millions of transdermal patches could offer the company should a low-dose treatment prove successful.  So, Love Pharma’s CEO initiated a deal that would allow his company to get directly involved with Naltrexone just as the drug is at the forefront of research to uncover the underlying causes and develop treatments for long COVID alongside industry names like Pfizer. 

According to Love Pharma, this is how a transdermal drug delivery solution works:

•  The transdermal formulation of a drug can be incorporated within a patch, which is then applied to the skin surface of the patient

•  A transdermal patch provides a consistent absorption rate over a predetermined time as prescribed.  The delivery method for transdermal drug delivery of suitable drugs can be highly flexible and can be applied for periods such as 24, 48, 72, 96, 120, and 144 hours – and up to 7, 8, 13, 14 or 15 days

•  Transdermal delivery overcomes the challenge of multiple dosage regimens associated with oral applications and accurately reflects the proper dosage entering the patient’s system to address the symptoms, while also circumventing the GI tract and related side effects

And let’s not forget the strategic alliance that Love Pharma established less than two months ago with Starton Therapeutics, a leading US clinical-stage biotechnology company.  Starton has a proprietary continuous drug delivery technology that can improve efficacy of approved drugs, make them more tolerable, and expand their potential use. 

Love Pharma stated that its investment in Starton Therapeutics is primarily based upon “the company’s interest in innovative drug delivery technology, such as transdermal patches that can reduce side effects, transforming patient outcomes with established, approved medicines allowing for streamlined market entry with long-term IP protections.”

Each piece of the company’s strategic plan is beginning to become more clear.  Acquiring Naltrexone Therapeutics and its significant IP related to the transdermal delivery of Naltrexone and any subsequent development of a treatment for long COVID using Naltrexone could certainly benefit from Starton’s three different delivery technologies that provide continuous low-dose delivery as part of its strategic platform that provides a controlled, sustained release over multiple days.

¹https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/addiction-drug-shows-promise-lifting-long-covid-brain-fog-fatigue-2022-10-18/

²https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9250701/

To learn more about Love Pharma, visit https://love-pharma.com or email investors@love-pharma.com.

About Love Pharma Inc.

With a focus on the global sexual Health and Wellness markets, Love Pharma Inc. was founded in 2020, with a mission to bring to market innovative products that enhance sexual health and wellness while providing an improved quality of life.  Love Pharma holds exclusive licenses to produce, market, package, sell, and distribute patent-protected therapeutic and pharmaceutical products throughout Europe, the United Kingdom, and North America.

About Stock Market Media Group

Stock Market Media Group is a News and Media content development IR firm offering a platform for corporate stories to unfold in the media with press releases, feature news articles, research reports, corporate videos, and radio-style CEO interviews.

This article was written based on publicly available information. Stock Market Media Group may, from time to time, include our own opinions about the companies, their business, markets and opportunities in our articles. Any opinions we may offer about any of the companies we write about are solely our own and are made in reliance upon our rights under the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and are provided solely for the general opinionated discussion of our readers. Our opinions should not be considered to be complete, precise, accurate, or current investment advice, or construed or interpreted as research. Any investment decisions you may make concerning any of the securities we write about are solely your responsibility based on your own due diligence. Our publications are provided only as an informational aid, and as a starting point for doing additional independent research. We encourage you to invest carefully and read the investor information available at the web site of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission at www.sec.gov. We also recommend, as a general rule, that before investing in any securities, you consult with a professional financial planner or advisor, and you should conduct a complete and independent investigation before investing in any security after prudent consideration of all pertinent risks.  We are not a registered broker, dealer, analyst, or advisor. We hold no investment licenses and may not sell, offer to sell, or offer to buy any security. Our publications about Love Pharma are not a recommendation to buy or sell a security.

Should Stock Market Media Group and its management own shares in the profiled company, they may benefit from any increase in the share price of the profiled companies and hold the right to sell the shares bought at any given time including shortly after the release of the company’s profile. Section 17(b) of the 1933 Securities and Exchange Act requires publishers who distribute information about publicly traded securities for compensation, to disclose who paid them, the amount, and the type of payment.  Under the Securities Act of 1933, Section 17(b), Stock Market Media Group discloses that it was remunerated one-thousand, three hundred dollars paid for by a third party via bank wire, to produce this content related to Love Pharma.

Stock Market Media Group and its management do not own any shares in Love Pharma and never accepts compensation in free-trading shares for its marketing services of the company being profiled, however third parties that have compensated Stock Market Media Group may hold free-trading shares of the company being profiled and could very well be selling, holding or buying shares of the company’s stock at the same time the content is being disseminated to potential investors; this should be viewed as a definite conflict of interest and as such, the reader should take this into consideration.

If Stock Market Media Group ever accepts compensation in the form of free trading shares of the company being profiled and decides to sell these shares into the public market at any time before, during, or after the release of the company’s profile, our disclaimer will be updated accordingly to reflect the current position of any free trading shares received as compensation for our services.

For more information: www.stockmarketmediagroup.com

CONTACT: Stock Market Media Group
info@stockmarketmediagroup.com