Alcohol use disorders constitute a major unmet medical need — affecting 18 million people and causing 100,000 annual deaths in the United States — and current therapeutic approaches have had only limited and nondurable success in treating them.

Daryl Davies, associate professor at the USC School of Pharmacy, hopes to develop an effective treatment for these disorders through two new studies, one focusing on repurposing the Federal Drug and Administration-approved drug ivermectin — currently used as an antiparasitic medication — and the other examining the role of specific receptors on alcohol intake. His novel approaches to dealing with alcohol use disorders have earned him a wide range of new funding.

This includes financial support from the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute (SC CTSI) at USC and Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, which awarded him a pilot grant for the project titled “Repositioning Ivermectin for the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders/First in Human Studies,” as well as a second, interrelated grant from the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), titled “Repositioning Ivermectin for the Treatment of Alcohol Use Disorders,” which was awarded to his UCLA clinical partner, Lara Ray, for which he will serve as key personnel. The SC CTSI grant comes in the form of a $50,000 2013 Multidisciplinary Research Pilot Award, and UCLA’s grant is a $30,000 2013 Pilot Award from the Clinical Research Center.

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