Development of a Highly Efficient Long-Acting Cocaine Hydrolase Entity to Accelerate Cocaine Metabolism

It is particularly challenging to develop a truly effective pharmacotherapy for cocaine use disorder (CUD) treatment. Accelerating cocaine metabolism via hydrolysis at cocaine benzoyl ester using an efficient cocaine hydrolase (CocH) is known as a promising pharmacotherapeutic approach to CUD treatment. Preclinical and clinical studies on our first CocH (CocH1), in its human serum albumin-fused form known as TV-1380, have demonstrated the promise of a general concept of CocH-based pharmacotherapy for CUD treatment. However, the biological half-life of TV-1380 (t 1/2 = 8 h in rats, associated with t 1/2 = 43–77 h in humans) is not long enough for practical treatment of cocaine dependence, which requires enzyme injection for no more than once weekly. Through protein fusion of a human butyrylcholinesterase mutant (denoted as CocH5) with a mutant (denoted as Fc­(M6)) of Fc from human IgG1, we have designed, prepared, and tested a new fusion protein (denoted as CocH5-Fc­(M6)) for its pharmacokinetic profile and in vivo catalytic activity against (−)-cocaine. CocH5-Fc­(M6) represents the currently most efficient long-acting cocaine hydrolase with both the highest catalytic activity against (−)-cocaine and the longest elimination half-life (t 1/2 = 229 ± 5 h) in rats. As a result, even at a single modest dose of 3 mg/kg, CocH5-Fc­(M6) can significantly and effectively accelerate the metabolism of cocaine in rats for at least 60 days. In addition, ∼70 nM CocH5-Fc­(M6) in plasma was able to completely block the toxicity and physiological effects induced by intraperitoneal injection of a lethal dose of cocaine (60 mg/kg).