Kinnov Therapeutics' EIC Accelerator Alcohol Drug: What It Funded

Kinnov Therapeutics, a biotech company registered in Orléans in 2015, develops KT-110, a pill that combines two old generic drugs, the blood pressure medicine prazosin and the antihistamine cyproheptadine, to help people with severe alcohol use disorder drink less. The European Commission selected its StopAddict project in the 3 April 2019 round of the EIC SME Instrument Phase 2, the Horizon 2020 forerunner of the EIC Accelerator, according to the Commission's list of selected companies, which names Kinnov Therapeutics as the only company in the project. CORDIS records a grant only award with an EU contribution of €2,402,680 towards a total cost of €3,859,659, running from 1 October 2019 to 31 March 2022.

The money paid for the step it was meant to pay for: a Phase 2 trial in 154 patients, which reduced drinking compared with placebo and was published in the journal Addiction in April 2024, with the Horizon 2020 grant 873252 named among its funders, according to the Europe PMC record. What the grant was supposed to unlock has not happened. No licensing deal has been announced, no Phase 3 trial is registered, and the market launch the company targeted for late 2025 or early 2026 has not taken place.

Where Kinnov Therapeutics Stands Now

The company is active. The French business register lists it as an operating simplified joint-stock company at its original Orléans address, in the size band of 1 or 2 employees for 2024, according to Annuaire des Entreprises. It filed its 2025 accounts in June 2026, with a confidentiality declaration, so its revenue, losses and cash are not public, according to BODACC. No insolvency proceedings appear in either source.

The company's share capital was increased twice this year. It rose to €295,088.66 in a change published in January 2026 and to €309,038.13 in one published in June 2026, the first increases since September 2020. Who subscribed, and how much was paid including share premium, is not public. The company's own news page was last updated on 30 October 2024.

The register names two companies, not people, as officers: Dianael as president and Berlion Conseil as managing director, the latter appointed in December 2018 in place of Emmanuel de Rivoire, according to BODACC and the register. Public descriptions of the leadership differ. The company's 2022 press release and a 2023 report call Emmanuel de Rivoire chief executive, while the company website lists Philippe Bernard as CEO and de Rivoire as general manager.

The Technology: Two Old Drugs, One New Target

Approved medicines for alcohol dependence, such as naltrexone and nalmefene, the comparators Kinnov names in its press material, have what the trial's lead investigator, Henri-Jean Aubin of Université Paris-Saclay, called "limited-to-moderate" effectiveness, according to HealthDay. KT-110 takes a different route. It is based on work by Jean-Pol Tassin, an Inserm research director, suggesting that blocking two brain receptors at the same time, the α1b-adrenergic receptor and the 5-HT2A serotonin receptor, dampens the dopamine-driven reward response that sustains addiction. Prazosin blocks the first and cyproheptadine the second; both are long-approved medicines, according to the company's June 2022 press release and the Addiction paper.

The aim is reduced drinking rather than abstinence. The trial's primary measure was the change in total alcohol consumption over three months, an endpoint the company says the US Food and Drug Administration has accepted for Phase 3. That FDA statement comes only from the company website and could not be verified independently. Because the two ingredients are old generics, the commercial value rests on the combination patent, which the press release calls a composition-of-matter patent, and on a new once-daily tablet.

What the Phase 2 Trial Showed

The trial, registered as NCT04108104 with Kinnov Therapeutics as sponsor, started on 30 November 2019 and was completed on 31 January 2022. It randomised 154 patients with severe alcohol use disorder, 108 men and 46 women, to a high dose, a low dose or placebo for three months. Compared with placebo, the high dose cut daily consumption by 23.6 grams of pure alcohol and the low dose by 18.4 grams; in very high-risk drinkers the high-dose difference was 29.8 grams a day. Both doses were well tolerated, according to the published abstract, and the same results were presented again at a psychiatry congress in 2025, according to a European Psychiatry abstract.

The size of the effect is modest next to the project's promises. The CORDIS summary said KT-110 would cut consumption in patients with alcohol use disorder "by 70%" and "save more than 5 million lives per year". Company publicity in 2023 said the drug "halves" drinking, which refers to a fall of about 50 grams a day from patients' starting level, not to the difference against placebo, according to PharmaVoice and Clinical Trials Arena. The number of trial sites also differs: the company's press release says 34 centres, while the peer-reviewed paper says 32. In 2021 the company told Maddyness the trial would include 180 patients; 154 were enrolled.

What the EIC Grant Promised, and What CORDIS Shows

The CORDIS objective named the Phase 2 trial as "the main achievement" of the project, alongside licensing deals with pharmaceutical companies and patent work, and forecast €117 million in cumulative revenue from KT-110 between 2025 and 2027 and more than 400 direct and indirect jobs. The project's published periodic report says the COVID-19 lockdown delayed the trial by six months, that only 30 patients had been included by the end of September 2020, that recruitment was later completed, and that a once-daily formulation would be ready in the first half of 2022. The report covers only the first 12 months in its text, although CORDIS labels it the report for the period to 31 March 2022. No final results summary or deliverables are published on CORDIS.

The new tablet arrived later than planned. A Phase 1 study comparing the KT-110 tablet with the two marketed drugs in healthy volunteers ran from April to December 2024 at Eurofins Optimed in Gières, according to ClinicalTrials.gov, which lists 12 participants; the company's news post of 19 April 2024 announced the study for eight subjects. No results have been posted.

1. Phase 2 trial of KT-110Delivered154 patients, completed January 2022, published in Addiction.
2. Once-daily formulation by mid-2022PartlyTablet tested in healthy volunteers in 2024; no results posted.
3. Licensing deal with a pharma companyNot achievedPartner search began June 2022; no deal announced.
4. €117M revenue 2025 to 2027Not achievedNo approval, no Phase 3, no sales.
5. 400 direct and indirect jobsNot achieved1 or 2 employees in 2024 (INSEE band).

Since the Grant: Looking for a Partner

The company never planned to take KT-110 to market alone. When it announced the Phase 2 result in June 2022, it said it had hired The Sage Group to find a commercial partner for the next phase of development and approval worldwide, according to its press release. In November 2023 it was still seeking one, according to Clinical Trials Arena, and de Rivoire told PharmaVoice that the company, which he described as "very small", was in talks with the FDA and European regulators and hoped to start Phase 3 "at the end of 2024 or early 2025". He also mentioned a second molecule, KT-333, in preclinical testing; no other source on it was found.

A search of ClinicalTrials.gov for trials sponsored by Kinnov Therapeutics returns only the Phase 2 trial and the 2024 Phase 1 study. The only investor named in public sources is Biocodex, the French drugmaker, which says it has invested since 2018, according to Biocodex. In 2021 Kinnov said it had raised €6.6 million from Biocodex and from grants from the EU, Bpifrance and the Centre-Val de Loire region, according to Maddyness; the split between equity and grants was not given. Kinnov Therapeutics is not in the EIC Fund portfolio, which fits a grant only award, and CORDIS lists no other EU project for the company.

Why It Matters for Europe

The EU is the heaviest-drinking area in the world, and about 800,000 deaths a year in the WHO European Region result from alcohol use, according to the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Europe's Beating Cancer Plan of February 2021 set a target of "a relative reduction of at least 10% in the harmful use of alcohol by 2025", according to the plan and Movendi International. The plan relies on taxation, labelling and marketing rules rather than medicines, but a drug that helps heavy drinkers cut back without demanding abstinence would serve the same goal. Both of its ingredients are already approved medicines. None of this matters unless someone pays for a Phase 3 trial.

The Verdict

Kinnov Therapeutics was not asked for comment for this article. It is based on public records and published statements, linked throughout.