For half a century, the University of Utah’s Anticonvulsant Drug Development (ADD) Program has been at the forefront of discovery, helping millions of people living with epilepsy and seizure disorders. Since its founding in 1975, ADD has grown into the longest-running NIH-funded program of its kind, a national model for how sustained research can change lives.
Over the past 50 years, ADD has:
- Helped bring 11 new drugs to patients with epilepsy and other seizure disorders.
- Tested more than 32,000 compounds, advancing the search for safe and effective therapies.
- Pioneered new approaches to epilepsy prevention, targeting individuals at risk after brain injury, stroke, or infection.
Epilepsy is the fourth most common brain disorder, affecting 3.4 million people in the U.S. and 65 million worldwide. For the one-third of patients who do not respond to current medications, ADD’s mission is urgent: discover new compounds that can finally provide seizure control.
“One of our main goals is to discover new compounds that can bring better seizure control to people who need it,” said Karen S. Wilcox, PhD, director of the ADD Program.
After 50 years, the ADD Program continues to deliver progress that patients and families can feel, turning persistent research into real treatments that improve quality of life.
