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Q&A: SCENESSE® successful in Phase IIa vitiligo study

Wednesday, December 19th, 2012

We’ve just released the first results from our vitiligo program which you can view online here. Following their release, we expect a number of questions from the vitiligo community, some of which we hope to address below. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact us via Facebook or email.

What was the CUV102 study?

CUV102 was an open-label Phase IIa study conducted in three US expert centres (The Vitiligo & Pigmentation Institute of Southern California in Los Angeles, The Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit and Mount Sinai Hospital in New York). The trial was designed as a ‘proof-of-concept’: to explore the potential of SCENESSE® to repigment depigmented skin in vitiligo. In total, 54 patients enrolled in the study and 41 completed the full treatment course. All of these patients were of Fitzpatrick skin types III-VI, generally darker skin types. (more…)

Inside Clinuvel: SCENESSE® in acne?

Monday, August 6th, 2012

A new article was published last week looking at a small pilot study of SCENESSE® (afamelanotide) in acne vulgaris. Before discussing this piece specifically, I think it is relevant to briefly review melanocortins and their receptors.

The active ingredient in SCENESSE®, afamelanotide, has been the focus of over 80 peer reviewed journals (as well as being mentioned in at least 100 more) since the initial formulatory work with the drug began in the 1980s. In the last two years alone the drug and its actual or theoretical application in the clinic have been presented at least 20 times at various global scientific forums. This growing library of resources reflects the enthusiasm of the medical community to put a new compound through its paces, both in vitro and in vivo. (more…)

The importance of clinical relevance

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

Development of novel drugs is truly like no other business: one attempts to address questions that may have never been previously posed – let alone answered – in the pursuit of improving the lives and quality of life of patients. As I eluded to in my recent letter to shareholders, the team is now well into the analysis of results from our erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP) program; two studies from the US and Europe. This is a complex and time consuming task that requires one to collate and make sense of thousands of data points to answer a seemingly straight forward question: does this trial show that the drug is safe and effective?

Obtaining an answer needs to be understood from the concept of clinical relevance. Put simply, results don’t just need to show that a treatment or intervention has an effect on a disease. Rather, they need to indicate that that effect is relevant to the current clinical understanding, treatment and care for the disease or indication. They need to show that the drug’s effect is having a positive, meaningful impact upon a patient’s prognosis and care. This is a crucial point to consider in the development of protocols and in the careful analysis of results, as it is how regulators will review the results. (more…)

Porphyrias: a disease grouping by cause, not symptoms

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Held biennially, the Porphyrins & Porphyrias conference (P&P) is the world’s largest gathering on the porphyrias – a group of metabolic disorders causing biochemical disruptions in the pathway of the body which synthesizes haem (heme).

As a result of each of these disruptions, the body presents with unique symptoms ranging from skin symptoms and phototoxicity – as those seen in erythropoietic protoporphyria and congenital erythropoietic porphyria – through to acute attacks of abdominal pain, seen most commonly in acute intermittent porphyria. In short, no two porphyrias are clinically identical yet they are discussed as a single group of disorders with a similar cause. As a matter of fact, there are eight variations of porphyrias, each with a specific clinical manifestation of disease. (more…)

‘Measuring’ vitiligo: the challenges of clinical and treatment evaluation

Monday, April 4th, 2011

Since our announcement last year that Clinuvel would commence a new program for SCENESSE® (afamelanotide) in nonsegmental vitiligo, the company has received vast interest in the application of the drug in this disease. Of the enquiries that best captured the essence of this program, one stood out: a US based analyst asked how the company intended to objectively measure the response to treatment, the repigmentation of vitiliginous lesions, in its trial. (more…)

New drug approval rates

Friday, February 25th, 2011

Novel drug development is a business which is not well understood; perhaps one which is not well explained. To be able to launch a novel drug proposition, one needs tenacity, expertise and a talented team to succeed. Unlike a ‘follow-on’ product where an abundance of safety data on the molecule in one or other formulation or therapeutic application exists, those few companies working with new drugs must clear all the necessary stringent barriers from the outset.

This makes novel drug development a risky endeavour, amplified by a level of uncertainty even when it is believed that the necessary regulatory hurdles have been cleared and the drug development process seems complete. By looking at several new molecules being developed for obesity (Lorcaserin, Contrave and Qnexa particularly), one can see how uncertain the outcome remains, even when so much work and so many years have been invested; others have written extensively about these cases and I encourage avid readers to review the publications. (more…)

A clinical success: study retention rates

Thursday, February 10th, 2011

We were delighted this week to be able to announce the successful completion of our first Phase II study conducted in the US, a placebo controlled, randomised trial of SCENESSE® (afamelanotide) for patients diagnosed with erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP) (CUV030). (more…)

Compassionate use – navigating the regulatory landscape to ‘do good’

Friday, December 3rd, 2010

As snow begins to fall around Clinuvel’s European office, the team in Australia is preparing for a long hot summer. The seasons are at the forefront of our minds at Clinuvel, since our lead drug SCENESSE® appears to have a dramatic impact on the ability of patients to expose themselves to sun. We try to test the drug under the most extreme conditions, meaning trials must be conducted in spring and summer. As the seasons change, we begin to see more requests and enquiries from the southern hemisphere, in particular from patients with erythropoietic protoporphyria (EPP), seeking access to the drug outside of formal trial programs. (more…)

A new program for SCENESSE®: nonsegmental vitiligo

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

A patient with vitiliginous lesions on their fingers and hands

Today Clinuvel has announced that it will be commencing a new program for SCENESSE® in the common pigmentary disorder vitiligo. While this is an exciting development for Clinuvel – increasing the potential for SCENESSE® as a therapy – we feel it is vital to provide as much in-depth information on our program as is feasible to ensure our stakeholders are aware of what we anticipate will and will not be achieved with SCENESSE® as a repigmentation therapy. (more…)

Pain measurement in clinical studies: The Likert Scale

Friday, August 13th, 2010

surveyWhen assessing new therapeutic goods through clinical trials, researchers must obtain information on the degree of a patient’s physical response to therapy. This data then undergoes detailed statistical analyses in order to determine the safety and efficacy (effectiveness) of the drug or treatment.

Central to Clinuvel’s clinical trial design, and the value of these studies, is measurement of the severity of phototoxic reactions (adverse reactions to light or UV radiation) in trial patients. In order to do this accurately, a symptom severity scale has been developed based on the method of ‘Likert scaling’.

(more…)

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