Improving Insomnia Management: Novel Agents in the Pipeline

Transcript:
Michael J. Thorpy, MD: Karl, there’s a drug that was mentioned by Nate called daridorexant. It’s a new drug. Can you tell us a little bit about this and what’s new and different about it?

Karl Doghramji, MD: As Nate mentioned, it’s a dual orexin receptor antagonist [DORA], and it seems to have a shorter half-life than the other DORAs. And it may, for that reason, have different clinical effects. But one of the interesting things about the clinical development of this medication is that it’s also been looked at for daytime functioning disturbances with insomniacs. It has been shown to have some improvement in some areas of daytime functioning, which I think is very interesting, since we’ve been speaking about daytime functioning as being a critical area for insomniacs. I think we need more studies like this. It would be very helpful in the future if we could also develop more objective ways of quantifying daytime dysfunction with insomniacs and see if these medications could be helpful. This medication was also studied in, I believe, a 3-month trial where there was a rapid discontinuation. Of course, that’s a clinical issue with many of our patients who discontinue sleep medications, stop taking them. In this particular case, there was no rebound insomnia, which was very interesting to find out.

Michael J. Thorpy, MD: Yes, this is interesting. You mentioned having effects on daytime functioning. When you survey patients, you find that daytime functioning is the biggest complaint, and I think you mentioned that at the beginning of the program. The fact that this medication has shown some benefit, not only at night, but also during the daytime, I think is a good direction. Hopefully, we will have other medications for insomnia that will address this as well and look at various daytime consequences of insomnia, not just look at how it’s improving the nighttime.

Karl Doghramji, MD: Another medication, Michael, I want to mention in the pipeline is something called IMB-115; it does not have an official name yet. It is a medication being developed for not only insomnia, but also for insomnia associated with alcohol cessation. It actually acts at the receptors that are important for both pain as well as for mood and other issues and those susceptive receptors. And interestingly, it may have some effects on drug addiction as well. Thus, it has been developed as a way of possibly treating alcohol cessation insomnia as well as insomnia, period.

Michael J. Thorpy, MD: Yes, I think this is particularly interesting because it’s a whole new different mechanism of action for a hypnotic [medication]. As you said, it’s affecting these pain receptors, it’s a pain receptor agonist. This medication is under investigation at the present time. What’s yet to be seen is whether it will eventually get FDA approved, of course. But it’s nice to think that there are new receptor types that could be affected by medications to help people sleep and not just the traditional ones.

Transcript edited for clarity.