London, UK; 26 Sept 2016: GW Pharmaceuticals plc (Nasdaq: GWPH, AIM: “GWP,” “GW,” “the Company” or “the Group”), a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing novel therapeutics from its proprietary cannabinoid product platform, announces positive results of the second randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 3 clinical trial of its investigational medicine Epidiolex® (cannabidiol or CBD) for the treatment of seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), a rare and severe form of childhood-onset epilepsy. In this trial, Epidiolex, when added to the patient’s current treatment, achieved the primary endpoint for both dose levels with high statistical significance. During the treatment period, patients taking Epidiolex 20mg/kg/day achieved a median reduction in monthly drop seizures of 42 percent compared with a reduction of 17 percent in patients taking placebo (p=0.0047), and patients taking Epidiolex 10mg/kg/day achieved a median reduction in monthly drop seizures of 37 percent compared with a reduction of 17 percent in patients taking placebo (p=0.0016).
This trial follows the announcement in June 2016 of positive results in the first pivotal Phase 3 trial of Epidiolex for the treatment of seizures associated with LGS, and the March 2016 announcement of positive results in the treatment of seizures associated with Dravet syndrome. GW expects to submit a New Drug Application (NDA) to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) in the first half of 2017.
“The positive outcome in this second trial of Epidiolex in patients with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome demonstrates the effectiveness of this product in this particularly difficult to treat, childhood-onset epilepsy,” stated Orrin Devinsky, M.D., of New York University Langone Medical Center’s Comprehensive Epilepsy Center and principal investigator in the trial. “The data from the Epidiolex Dravet and LGS studies offers the prospect of an FDA-approved CBD medicine that shows both clinically meaningful seizure reduction and a consistent safety and tolerability profile. I believe Epidiolex has the potential to become an important new option within the field of treatment-resistant epilepsy.”