Synthetic Biologics is developing drugs for the treatment of serious central nervous system disorders. In its pipeline are a prescription medical food -- specifically an oral tablet of zinc and an amino acid called cysteine -- for Alzheimer's disease and drugs for age-related macular degeneration (loss of vision), fibromyalgia (arthritis-related muscle pain), multiple sclerosis, and rheumatoid arthritis. The company generally prefers to in-license product candidates that have already shown certain clinical efficacy and then either develop them to commercialization or attract development partners, such as it did with Meda, which holds rights to complete development of Synthetic's fibromyalgia drug Effirma.