UCB presents data on Vimpat AED at AES meeting

Dec 7 2009

UCB today announced new findings on its antiepileptic drug (AED) Vimpat® that offer additional clinical evidence supporting the use of this AED as adjunctive therapy in adult patients with partial-onset seizures. Results of presented research demonstrate sustained efficacy in adult patients taking Vimpat® for up to three years, and a consistent long-term tolerability profile. A separate study reports that adverse events potentially related to cognition occurred at similar rates for Vimpat® and placebo. In pre-clinical studies, Vimpat® was shown to exert a novel effect on sodium channels. These and other Vimpat® data were presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the American Epilepsy Society (AES) in Boston.

Highlights include:

• Vimpat® was associated with sustained efficacy as measured by percent change in seizure frequency and responder rates (percent of patients reporting seizure reduction rates of 50 percent or greater) among patients on active treatment for 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, or 36 months.
• In an analysis of patients taking Vimpat® for a median of two years, no new types of treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) occurred with long-term use, and rates of TEAEs were similar to those observed during the pivotal clinical trials.
• A preliminary retrospective analysis of Vimpat® phase II/III studies reported that rates of spontaneously reported adverse events potentially related to cognition among Vimpat® patients were dose-dependent and not significantly different from those observed in patients taking placebo.
• Experiments on the brain cells involved in epileptic seizures suggest that Vimpat® exerts a novel effect on sodium channels, different from traditional sodium channel AEDs.

"As a clinician, it is encouraging to know that the ongoing clinical program for Vimpat® has yielded safety and efficacy data totaling almost 3,000 patient years of exposure," said Dr. Jacqueline French, Director of the Clinical Trials Consortium at the Comprehensive Epilepsy Center at New York University Langone Medical Center.