US drug agency to fund further testing of Solvonis addiction candidate - UPDATE Proactive uses images sourced from ShutterstockShares in Solvonis Therapeutics PLC (LSE:SVNS, OTC:SLVNF) rose 7% to 0.15p after it cleared the first hurdle in a US government testing programme for an experimental treatment for cocaine and methamphetamine addiction. The National Institute on Drug Abuse, part of the US government's medical research arm, has agreed to advance the compound, known as SVN-015, into a further round of studies. The agency funds and runs the work itself through its Addiction Treatment Discovery Program, giving the London-listed company access to specialist laboratories without paying for them or issuing new shares. There is no medicine approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for stimulant use disorder, leaving behavioural therapy as the main treatment. The compound remains at the discovery stage, several years from any human trial, and came out of Solvonis's artificial intelligence-assisted drug discovery work.