Neurobiological Technologies, Inc. ("NTI") was a biotechnology company that was founded in 1987 by Enoch Callaway and John B. Stuppin to in-license and develop drugs primarily to treat neurological conditions; the company was dissolved in 2009 after the failure of its drug candidate ancrod in a Phase III trial for ischemic stroke.
[4][5] At the time the company made its first public offering in 1996, it had three products in development: memantine, a small molecule for neuropathic pain and AIDS-related dementia, corticotropin-releasing factor, a biopharmaceutical to treat edema caused by brain tumors and inflammation caused by rheumatoid arthritis, and dynorphin A, a biopharmaceutical to treat pain.
[6] Frieman cut staff from 23 people to 9, and in 1998 amended NTI's agreement with Children's Hospital of Boston to allow the German company Merz Pharma, which had been marketing memantine in Europe for dementia since 1989 and was running similar clinical trials to those run by NTI, to take over development.
[7][8] In 2000 Merz partnered with Forest Laboratories to further develop memantine, and NTI received about $8 million from the upfront payment.
[10] The company collapsed when a Phase III trial of ancrod was halted early in December 2008 when an independent review committee looked at the interim data and found no signal of benefit.