Korea's GNT Pharma is set to take its first-in-class, multi-targeted stroke therapy Nelonemdaz into Phase III, raising hopes for a new treatment that could sharply reduce disabilities and death in stroke patients. 

Hopes that a neuroprotective agent can be developed to reduce the damage caused by ischaemic stroke have received a boost, with data from a Phase II trial in the The Lancet Neurology showing promise for a protein acting on a post-synaptic brain protein. Together with some promising early data for two other potential neuroprotective agents, experts say the data seem to support renewed efforts in developing such drugs despite their chequered developmental history.