More than 325,000 cardiac arrests occur each year in the United States. A cardiac arrest, when the heart suddenly stops beating, causes loss of consciousness and death if untreated after several minutes. Patients who are revived from cardiac arrest can suffer from brain injury due to lack of blood flow to the brain during the event. Therapeutic hypothermia, in which a patients body temperature is lowered, can help prevent brain injury after cardiac arrest. Currently, health care providers lower body temperature with a combination of ice bags, cooling pads and drugs. However, less than 12 percent of hospitals use therapeutic hypothermia because it is complex, it can take too much time and the drugs can be dangerous. This effort will develop a drug called HBN-1 that causes hypothermia by affecting the brain region that controls body temperature. This new approach would allow paramedics to inject the drug intravenously (through an IV) to more quickly and safely induce therapeutic hypothermia. The team is collaborating on the completion of the following studies: - Formulation development - Pharmacokinetic/absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion (PK/ADME) studies - Investigational New Drug (IND)-directed toxicology
