Topiramate

Phentermine

2010 was supposed to be the year in which one or more new obesity drugs would be approved by the FDA and reach the market. Three new drugs developed by small California companies–Vivus Pharmaceuticals’ Qnexa, Orexigen Therapeutics’ Contrave, and Arena Therapeutics’ lorcaserin, were up for review by the FDA. This follows a long hiatus, since the FDA has approved no anti-obesity drug since 1999.

On July 15, 2010, the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee voted against FDA approval of Vivus’ Qnexa (phentermine/topiramate), with six votes in favor and 10 against. The FDA usually follows the advice of its advisory panels, but does not always do so.

The advisory committee agreed that the drug caused significant weight loss, with patients who took the highest doses of the drug having lost over 10 percent of their weight in a year. But many panelists questioned the lack of long-term data on efficacy, since the real issue with weight loss regimens (whether diet and exercise alone or with drug treatments) is the inability of patients to keep weight off once it has been lost.

But above all, panelists had concerns about Qnexa’s safety. Major concerns included the potential for fetal exposure during pregnancy and birth defects, depression, cognitive issues, and increases in heart rate. Most panelists who voted no were not strongly against approval, but they had lingering concerns, especially since the drug if approved would be given to large numbers of essentially healthy people over a long period of time–perhaps a lifetime.

Vivus said that it would work with the FDA to address the panelists concerns. For example, the company expects to have longer-term safety data on the drug in the next several months.

Qnexa is a low-dose, controlled release formulation of two FDA-approved drugs: phentermine and topiramate. Qnexa is designed to both suppress appetite (phentermine) and promote satiety (topiramate). Phentermine, an amphetamine, is prescribed as a weight-loss aid that is used short-term. It was the “phen” half of the notorious “Fen-Phen” combination. The “fen” part, fenfluramine (Pondimin) or dexfenfluramine (Redux), were serotonin modulators that caused cardiovascular side-effects. Topiramate is an anticonvulsant. As separate agents, phentermine and topiramate have minimal effects on weight loss. However, according to Vivus’ studies, the two drugs appear to have a synergistic effect, even at low doses, that results in significant weight loss. Vivus’ studies also indicate that the two drugs mitigate each other’s side effects; the low does and controlled release is also designed to reduce side effects.

Side effects of phentermine may include increase in blood pressure and heart palpitations, as well as gastrointestinal side effects. Side effects of topirmate may include cognitive issues, lack of coordination, aggressiveness, changes in ability to taste food and loss of appetite, cardiovascular side effects, and others. The risk of birth defects with ether of these drugs is unknown. However, there is preliminary evidence that topiramate might cause birth defects.

Lorcaserin is up for FDA Advisory Panel review in September 2010 and Contrave is tentatively scheduled for review in December 2010. Lorcaserin is a selective serotonin receptor agonist, which is specific for the 5-HT2C receptor. This contrasts with the nonselective serotonin reuptake inhibitor and serotonin-releasing agents, fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine. Lorcaserin is thus designed to be a more selective agent that works by a similar mechanism to dexfenfluramine or fenfluramine. Since the anorectic effects of fenfluramine/dexfenfluramine is due to their activity on 5-HT2C, but the adverse effects of these agents appears to be due to their activity on 5-HT2B, lorcaserin may be a safer agent that fenfluramine/dexfenfluramine. But like fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine, the efficacy of lorcaserin appears to be minimal.

Contrave, like Qnexa, is a combination of long-acting formulations of two FDA-approved drugs–bupropion and naltrexone. Orexigen designed Contrave to have a dual effect on pathways within the hypothalamus of the brain that control energy balance–increasing anorexia and inhibiting the reward effects of food. The company also believes that Contrave may block the body’s compensation for weight loss–i.e., decreased energy use and increased feeding. (For additional details, see our 2008 book-length obesity report, published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute.)

The Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee’s recommendation against Qnexa casts a cloud on the upcoming reviews by the same committee of the other two drugs. However, the jury is still out on lorcaserin and Contrave. And approval of Qnexa may (or may not) be reconsidered as Vivus presents additional data.

However, antiobesity drugs that work via the CNS to control appetite by modulating the activity of common neurotransmitter pathways have a generally poor record. First was the fenfluramine/dexfenfluramine/Fen-Phen debacle, in which fenfluramine and dexfenfluramine (Interneuron/Wyeth) were found in the postmarking period to cause heart valve damage, leading to market withdrawal in 1997 and a host of lawsuits. Sanofi Aventis’ rimonabant never reached the U.S. market–in 2007 the FDA rejected the drug due to neurologic and psychological adverse effects. Rimonabant was also suspended from use in Europe in 2008. A related Merck drug, taranabant, was never submitted to the FDA, since it had similar adverse effects to rimonabant. And despite a growing understanding of pathways (involving neurotransmitters and neuropeptides) in the hypothalamus that control appetite, and despite a large number of promising leads that emerged from that research, not one drug derived from this research has yet emerged from early clinical trials.

In many cases, drugs that were designed to address these pathways had unacceptable adverse effects, since the neurotransmitter or neuropeptide receptors that they addressed are also involved in other CNS and/or peripheral tissue pathways that do not control body weight or energy balance. This is also the problem with appetite control drugs that have reached the IND or post-marketing stage. Such drugs as fenfluramine/dexfenfluramine and sibutramine target receptors for such common neurotransmitters as serotonin and noradrenaline, which are involved in many pathways within the CNS and peripheral tissues. Rimonabant is an antagonist of the CB1 cannabinoid receptor, which is widely expressed in the brain and in other tissues and modulates multiple pathways.

Sibutramine (Abbott’s Meridia/ Reductil) is an approved and marketed appetite-control drug that works via the CNS. It is a serotonin–norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. Sibutramine causes increases in blood pressure and heart rate. Therefore, the drug is contraindicated in patients with uncontrolled blood pressure and certain other conditions.

There is also concern that sibutramine may cause more serious cardiovascular conditions. Early in 2010, the FDA issued a warning that the drug posed an increased risk of heart attack and stroke in patients with a history of cardiovascular disease. This resulted in an additional contraindication on the drug’s label. And a few patients taking sibutramine may experience psychological adverse effects. Because of concerns about sibutramine’s safety, the drug has recently been suspended from use in the U.K. and the E.U. Sibutramine is also under continued review by the FDA.

Sibutramine and the other approved antiobesity drug, orlistat (Roche’s Xenical–also marketed as a low-dose over the counter formulation, GlaxoSmithKline’s alli) have only marginal efficacy. And orlistat, which works not in the CNS, but in the gut to block fat absorption, has unpleasant gastrointestinal adverse effects. Therefore there is a need for safer, more efficacious antiobesity drugs.

Nevertheless, the history of failure of antiobesity drugs, especially appetite-control drugs that work via the CNS and modulate neurotransmitter receptors that are involved in multiple pathways, continues, with the decision of the FDA Advisory Committee on Qnexa being the latest episode.

Perhaps companies will have more success developing antiobesity drugs that primarily address metabolic pathways involved in both obesity and diabetes, rather than being directed at appetite-control pathways in the CNS that involve common neurotransmitters. We discussed this strategy in two earlier articles on this blog, dated October 25, 2009 and January 28, 2010. These articles focused on the incretin mimetics, especially liraglutide (Novo Nordisk’s Victoza). Incretin mimetics [which also include exenatide (Amylin/Lilly’s Byetta)] trigger an increase in insulin secretion by the pancreas, and also reduces gastric emptying. The latter effect slows nutrient release into the bloodstream and appears to increase satiety and thus reduce food intake.

Part of the mechanisms of action of the natural incretin glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and of incretin mimetics involves activity in the CNS. However, GLP-1 receptors in the brain appear to be more specific in their activity than receptors for common neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine. The main adverse effect that has been seen with the incretin mimetics exenatide and liraglutide is a transient nausea. Thus incretin mimetics do not appear to cause the psychological and neurological side effects seen with such drugs as sibutramine, rimonabant, and phentermine, and presumably Qnexa.

Nevertheless, acute pancreatitis has been seen in some patients taking exenatide (which resulted in a warning on the label that patients with a history of pancreatitis should not take the drug, and that the drug should be discontinued if symptoms suggesting pancreatitis should develop). Rodents receiving either exenatide or liraglutide have developed thyroid C-cell focal hyperplasia and C-cell tumors. There is no evidence that humans develop thyroid tumors as the result of taking ether drug, however. Nevertheless, the label for liraglutide carries a “back box” warning highlighting the thyroid tumor results in rodents, and including a contraindicating the use of the drug in patents with a history of medullary thyroid carcinoma.

Companies usually develop dual diabetes/obesity drugs first for diabetes, since the regulatory pathway for that disease is easier than for obesity. This has been the case for both exenatide and liraglutide. However, Novo Nordisk announced on June 22, 2010, that following the FDA approval of liraglutide for treatment of type 2 diabetes, it was restarting Phase III clinical trials of the drug in obesity.

As we noted in our October 25, 2009 article, there are at least several companies with early stage dual diabetes/obesity drugs, which they are developing for diabetes. Early-stage obesity drug development has been mainly on hold, awaiting the regulatory approval of Qnexa, Contrave, and/or lorcaserin. Now the results of the regulatory reviews of these three drugs are starting to come in. If none of the three is approved, than early-stage obesity drug development may remain on hold indefinitely.

During the week of February 22, 2010, the New York Times (NYT) ran a three-part series on a Phase I trial in 2008/2009 of a targeted therapy for metastatic melanoma, a disease that is almost always fatal within a year. The trial was led by Keith T. Flaherty, M.D. (then at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and now at the Dana-Farber Cancer Center in Boston). The drug was PLX4032, developed by Plexxikon, which is co-developing the compound with Roche. PLX4032 is a kinase inhibitor, which specifically targets the V600E mutant of the B-Raf oncoprotein. This is the most common somatic mutation found in human melanomas. Researchers believe that B-Raf(V600E) is a “driver mutation” that is particularly critical for the malignant phenotype of human metastatic melanomas that carry the mutation. PLX4032 entered Phase III clinical trials in 2009.

The NYT series, authored by Amy Harmon, focused on the stories of several patients, and on the dogged efforts of Dr. Flaherty to help his patients and to prove the value of targeted therapy. Although the targeted kinase inhibitor imatinib (Novartis’ Gleevec/Glivec) produces complete responses in the majority of treated patients in the chronic phase of CML (chronic myelogenous leukemia) and long-lasting remissions in many of these patients, many researchers believe that this is a special case, and they cite evidence that targeted therapy, especially in solid tumors, almost never produces durable responses. But Dr. Flaherty pressed on with his quest to prove the value of targeted therapy, despite this skepticism.

A key point in the story was when the original formulation of PLX4032, at the highest dose that patients could absorb, produced neither adverse effects nor clinical responses. Because of his belief in targeted therapy, and in this particular drug, Dr. Flaherty convinced Roche to reformulate the drug to enable patients to absorb a higher dose. With the higher doses of the drug made possible by the new formulation, the researchers saw dramatic clinical responses in the great majority of patients whose tumors contained B-Raf(V600E). Responses lasted an average of nearly 9 months, a dramatic breakthrough in treatment of metastatic melanoma.

As the series ended, Dr. Flaherty was working with his colleagues and the pharmaceutical industry to find ways to enable the testing of combination therapies of targeted drugs (including PLX4032) that might result in long-lasting remissions in patients with metastatic melanoma. Meanwhile, Plexxikon and Roche have taken PLX4032 into Phase II clinical trials and now into Phase III.

The NYT series is essentially a human-interest story. I commend it to all researchers, executives, and consultants in the industry whose work does not involve contact with patients, since creating products that can help patients is what our work is all about.

Dr. Flaherty reminds me, and others who have commented on this story, of Brian J. Druker, M.D. at the Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. It was Dr. Druker’s efforts, centered on helping patients and proving the value of targeted therapy, that was the driving force behind the development of imatinib (Novartis’ Gleevec/Glivec). Without this effort (conducted in collaboration with biochemist Nicholas B. Lydon, then at Novartis), the whole field of kinase inhibitors for targeted therapy of cancer would not have emerged. Dr. Flaherty, as well as several other oncologists, is continuing this worthy tradition.

As pointed out to me by a leading Boston-area academic researcher in a cancer-related area, the NYT series did not give credit to the academic researchers who identified the role of B-Raf in cancer, and especially the role of B-Raf(V600E) in human melanoma. (For that matter, it did not credit the Plexxicon researchers who discovered PLX4032.) She said that the series sounded as if only one person, Dr. Flaherty, was responsible for the development of PLX4032. Moreover, the development of imatinib was made possible by decades of academic research on the target of the drug, Bcr-Abl, a fusion protein formed as the result of a chromosomal translocation. Drs. Druker and Lydon thus were not solely responsible for the development of imatinib either.

The academic researcher has a point. However, some industry commentators take a contrary point of view, downplaying the role of academic researchers in the drug discovery/development process and giving most of the credit to industry.

For years, we have taken the point of view that biology-driven drug discovery and development (arguably the most successful drug discovery/development strategy in the post-genomic era) requires the contributions of both academia and industry, and that more effective collaboration between academia and industry would result in more effective drug discovery and development. (See also my 2005 letter to the editor of BusinessWeek.)

It is basic research, usually in academic laboratories, that has resulted in the very best validated targets. Basic research on a particular target typically takes years or even decades (as in the case of Bcr-Abl). Many of the breakthrough drugs that have emerged in the past 10-15 years (as well as numerous promising pipeline drugs now in clinical testing) were made possible by this research. In contrast, large-scale “target validation” testing in industry more often than not results in targets whose role in normal physiology and in disease is poorly understood. This is an important cause of clinical attrition in drug development.

Nevertheless, it is industry, not academia, which uses this basic research to create drugs. In particular, it is industry that bears the enormous economic risk of drug development, especially of late-stage clinical trials.

Translational researchers, who are involved in taking the results of academic research and/or of discovery research in industry, and translating them into therapies that benefit patients, are—or should be—a key component of the drug discovery-development process. Drs. Druker and Flaherty are two outstanding examples.

However, at least some sectors of academia (and of governmental policy-makers and the media) are suspicious of the type of closer industry-academic collaboration that is needed to produce more effective translation of basic and drug-discovery research into the clinic. An editorial in the 25 February issue of Nature notes that there has been criticism of the recent hiring of William Chin, Lilly’s senior VP for discovery and clinical research, to be the executive dean for research at Harvard Medical School. The critics charge that strong research collaborations between academia and industry will inevitably result in conflicts of interest. The Nature editorial supports institutional policies that require disclosure of links between academic researchers and industry, but deplores the views of influential critics who believe that any collaboration between academic researchers and industry “corrupts” the academic research enterprise.

In addition to Nature, some leading academic researchers say that it is time for industry and the academic medical community to fight back against the critics, rather than appeasing them with ever more restrictive conflict-of-interest policies. These researchers note that the main purpose of medical research is not to publish scientific papers, but to translate this knowledge into therapies that benefit patients. This requires effective collaboration between academia and industry. We agree.

On November 8, 2009, we posted an article entitled “Anti-aging biology: new basic research, drug development, and organizational strategy” on this blog. This article focused on new findings in anti-aging biology, their applications to drug discovery and development, and on how this field has affected the organizational strategy of GlaxoSmithKline (GSK).

GSK acquired Sirtris for $720 million in 2008. Later that year, GSK appointed Christoph Westphal, the CEO and co-founder of Sirtris, as the Senior Vice President of GSK’s Centre of Excellence in External Drug Discovery (CEEDD). The CEEDD works to develop external alliances with biotech companies, with the goal of acquiring promising new drug candidates for GSK’s pipeline. Michelle Dipp, who was the vice president of business development at Sirtris at the time of GSK’s appointment of Dr. Wesphal, became Vice President and the head of the US CEEDD at GSK. Thus GSK has been using its relationship with Sirtris to restructure its organizational strategy, attempting to become more “biotech-like” in order to improve its R&D performance.

Now we learn that several research groups and companies have been questioning whether resveratrol (a natural product derived from red wine which has been the basis of Sirtris’ sirtuin-activator platform), as well as Sirtris’ second-generation compounds, may not modulate the sirtuin SIRT1 at all. Thanks to Derek Lowe’s “In the Pipeline” blog for the information. This issue was also covered in a second post on the same blog. It was also covered by articles in the 15 January 2010 issue of New Scientist and in the January 26, 2010 issue of Forbes. Nature also covered this story in an online news article.

In a report published in December 2009, researchers at Amgen found evidence that the apparent in vitro activation of SIRT1 was an artifact of the experimental method used by Sirtris researchers. The Amgen group found that the fluorescent SIRT1 peptide substrate used in the Sirtris assay is a substrate for SIRT1, but in the absence of the covalently linked fluorophore, the peptide is not a SIRT1 substrate. Although resveratrol appears to be an activator of SIRT1 if the artificial fluorophore-conjugted substrate is used, resveratrol does not activate SIRT1 in vitro as determined by assays using two other non-fluorescently-labeled substrates.

More recently, researchers at Pfizer published a study of SIRT1 activation by resveratrol and three of Sirtris’ second-generation sirtuin activators (which the Pfizer researchers synthesized themselves, using published protocols). These researchers also found that although these compounds activated SIRT1 when a fluorophore-bearing peptide substrate was used, they were not SIRT1 activators in in vitro assays using native peptide or protein substrates. The Pfizer researchers also found that the Sirtris compounds interact directly with the fluorophore-conjugated peptide, but not with native peptide substrates.

Moreover, the Pfizer researchers were not able to replicate Sirtris’ in vivo studies of its compounds. Specifically, when the Pfizer researchers tested SRT1720 in a mouse model of obese diabetes, a 30 mg/kg dose of the compound failed to improve blood glucose levels, and the treated mice showed increased food intake and weight gain. A 100 mg/kg dose of SRT1720 was toxic, and resulted in the death of 3 out of 8 mice tested.

The Pfizer researchers also found that the Sirtris compounds interacted with an even greater number of cellular targets (including an assortment of receptors, enzymes, transporters, and ion channels) than resveratrol. For example, SRT1720 showed over 50% inhibition of 38 out of 100 targets tested, while resveratrol only inhibited 7 targets. Only one target, norepinephrine transporter, was inhibited by greater than 50% by all three Sirtris compounds and by resveratrol. Thus the Sirtris compounds have a different target selectivity profile than resveratrol, and all of these compounds exhibit promiscuous targeting.

Sirtris and GSK dispute the findings of the Amgen and Pfizer researchers. One issue raised by Sirtris is that the Sirtris compounds synthesized by Pfizer may have contained impurities, resulting in the toxicity and lack of specificity of the compounds in vivo. Researchers associated with Sirtris and GSK also contend that although the Sirtris compounds only work with fluorophore-conjugated peptides in vitro, they appear to increase the activity of SIRT1 in cells. However, other researchers assert that since resveratrol interacts with many targets in cells, the results of the cellular assays are difficult to interpret. In the Forbes article, GSK’s CEO Andrew Witty is quoted as calling the dispute over the activity of the Sirtris compounds “a bit of a storm in a teacup”. He says that the compounds that Pfizer tested in mice are not the same ones that Sirtris and GSK are currently testing in clinical trials for treatment of diabetes and cancer. (Sirtris’ compounds in clinical trials, discussed in the next paragraph, are in fact different from the ones tested by the Pfizer researchers.)

Currently, Sirtris is testing its proprietary formulation of resveratrol, SRT501, in a Phase IIa clinical trial in cancer. The company reports that SRT501 lowered blood glucose and improved insulin sensitivity in patients with type 2 diabetes in a Phase IIa trial. Sirtris is also testing a second-generation SIRT1 activator, SRT2104, in Phase IIa trials in patients with metabolic, inflammatory and cardiovascular diseases. SRT2104 was found to be safe and well tolerated in Phase I trials in healthy volunteers. Sirtris is also testing another second-generation SIRT1 activator, SRT2379, In Phase I trials. SRT2379 is structurally distinct from resveratrol and from SRT2104.

As we discussed in our original blog post, Elixir Pharmaceuticals is also developing various sirtuin inhibitors and activators for metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases and for cancer. One of Elixir’s products, the SIRT1 inhibitor EX-527, was in-licensed by Siena Biotech (Siena, Italy) in 2009, and was entered into Phase I clinical trials in January 2010. Siena Biotech is developing this compound for treatment of Huntington’s disease.

Despite the dispute over whether Sirtris’ compounds are real SIRT1 activators, the numerous studies on the biology of sirtuins are still valid. Companies with assays that use native peptide substrates and are amenable to high-throughput screening could use these assays to discover novel sirtuin activators. For example, Amgen published a report in 2008 describing such assays. The ability of companies such as Amgen and Pfizer to commercialize such novel sirtuin activators would depend on whether they could overcome the intellectual property position of Sirtris (and Elixir). Since Amgen and Pfizer are working in this area, this indicates that they believe that they can do so.

The efficacy of high doses of resveratrol in improving metabolic parameters of mice fed a high-calorie diet is also not invalidated by the Amgen and Pfizer studies. However these studies cast doubt on the mechanisms by which resveratrol exerts these effects. The apparent efficacy of SRT501 in improving metabolic parameters in patients with type 2 diabetes in a Sirtris Phase IIa trial is consistent with the mouse studies.

Finally, as we discussed in our November 8, 2009 blog post, longevity is controlled by numerous interacting pathways, which may provide at least several targets for drug discovery. Researchers are hard at work to gain additional understanding of these pathways, and some companies are working to discover and develop compounds that modulate these targets. For example, several companies are developing AMPK activators, as discussed in our original blog post. And numerous research groups are reportedly attempting to find drugs that act similarly to rapamycin in increasing lifespan in mice (the main focus of our November blog post), without rapamycin’s immunosuppressive effects.

On October 25, 2009, we posted an article on this blog that focused on liraglutide (Novo Nordisk’s Victoza) as a potential treatment for obesity. As we stated in the article, at that time liraglutide had recently been approved in Europe for treatment of type 2 diabetes. The drug was also awaiting FDA approval for that indication.

On January 26, 2010, after a 21-month review, the FDA approved liraglutide for treatment of type 2 diabetes. This followed the approval of the drug in Japan a week earlier.

The approval process for liraglutide in the United States had not been straightforward. In April 2009, the FDA’s Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee voted 6-6 (with one abstention) on approval versus disapproval of liraglutide, because of the finding of thyroid C-cell tumors in studies of the drug in rodents. There is no evidence, however, that liraglutide has ever caused thyroid tumors (or other types of cancer) in humans.

As a result, the drug’s label carries a black box warning of the risk for thyroid cancer, and requires a risk-mitigation strategy. However, as we discussed in our article, liraglutide has an advantage over most antidiabetic drugs in that it induces weight loss. It also has a low risk of triggering hypoglycemia, which is a problem with several antidiabetic drugs.

As we also discussed in our article, liraglutide belongs to a class of agents known as incretin mimetics. The first incretin mimetic to reach the market was exenatide (Amylin/Lilly’s Byetta). Exenatide, which is approved for type 2 diabetes, also induces weight loss. Physicians therefore sometimes prescribe exenatide off-label for treatment of obesity. However, exenatide has a relatively short half-life, and must be self-injected twice a day. In contrast, liraglutide has a longer half-life than exenatide, and is self-injected only once a day. Amylin and Lilly are developing a longer-acting, once-weekly formulation of exenatide (known as Exenatide Once Weekly) for treatment of type 2 diabetes. The new formulation is being developed in collaboration with Alkermes, which developed the long-acting drug-delivery technology. Amylin, Lilly, and Alkermes are awaiting FDA approval of the NDA for Exenatide Once Weekly.

Exenatide’s label carries no warning with respect to thyroid cancer. However, it does carry a warning concerning the risk of drug-associated pancreatitis. Moreover, the FDA Advisory Committee raised concerns that the risk of thyroid C-cell tumors may be a class effect of incretin mimetics. The FDA has mandated that Amylin conduct postmarketing studies to deal with this concern; depending on the results of the studies, a warning of a risk for thyroid cancer may (or may not) appear on the labels of Byetta and Exenatide Once Weekly.

Despite these safety concerns, the stocks of not only Novo Nordisk, but also Amylin and Alkermes, rose on the news that the FDA had approved Victoza. Stock analysts predicted that the approval of Victoza implied that the FDA was likely to approve Exenatide Once Weekly later in 2010.

Our October 2009 blog post discussed exenatide and liraglutide in the context of the obesity drug market, and specifically drugs that treat both type 2 diabetes and obesity. Neither exenatide not liraglutide is approved for treatment of obesity in any jurisdiction, however. As we discussed in our original article, Novo Nordisk has been developing liraglutide for obesity, but Amylin is developing other, earlier-stage drugs for that indication despite the weight loss benefits seen with exenatide. Novo Nordisk had been waiting for FDA approval of liraglutide for treatment of type 2 diabetes before proceeding with further development of the drug for obesity. Now that the company has obtained that approval, we expect that development of liraglutide for obesity will be restarted.

In the December 15, 2009 issue of Neurology, a research report by Stephen Salloway and his colleagues at the Butler Hospital and Brown University (Providence, RI) and an editorial by Dan Kaufer and Sam Gandy (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) focus on a Phase II multicenter placebo-controlled clinical trial of Elan/Wyeth’s bapineuzumab (AAB-001) in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease (AD). (Wyeth is now part of Pfizer.) (A subscription is required to read the full text of both of these articles.) Bapineuzumab is a monoclonal antibody (MAb) drug that is specific for amyloid-β (Aβ) peptide. The dominant paradigm among AD researchers and drug developers is that the disease is caused by aberrant metabolism of Aβ, resulting in accumulation of neurotoxic Aβ plaques. This paradigm is known as the “amyloid hypothesis”.

The overall result of the study by Salloway et al. was that there was no difference in cognitive function between patients in the drug-treated and the placebo groups. However, the study did not have sufficient statistical power to exclude the possibility that there was such a difference. About 10% of patients treated with the agent also experienced vasogenic edema (VE), which was reversible. (Cerebral VE is the infiltration of intravascular fluid and proteins into brain tissue, as the result of breakdown of the blood-brain barrier.)

Retrospective analysis of the data suggested that bapineuzumab-treated patients who were not carriers of the apolipoprotein E epsilon4 allele (ApoE4) showed improved cognitive function as compared to placebo treatment, and that they had a lower incidence of VE than ApoE4 carriers. The ApoE4 polymorphism is the only known, well-characterized genetic risk factor associated with the development of late-onset AD. Of the three common isoforms of ApoE, ApoE3 is the most common, followed by ApoE4 and ApoE2, respectively. Unlike ApoE4, the ApoE2 allele appears to protect against development of AD. Some researchers estimate that allelic variations in ApoE may account for over 95% of AD cases.

In the study by Salloway et al., nearly two-thirds of the AD patients carried one or more ApoE4 alleles; thus only the remaining one-third of patients appeared to show positive effects of bapineuzumab treatment according to the retrospective analysis. However, the idea that the drug is efficacious in ApoE4 noncarriers is only a hypothesis, which will require prospective clinical trials to confirm. Elan and Pfizer are now conducting large Phase III clinical trials of bapineuzumab, which have prospectively segregated enrollment into ApoE4 carrier and noncarrier groups.

The hypothesized association of ApoE4 noncarrier status of AD patients with bapineuzumab efficacy and safety has been used as a case study in workshops on stratified medicine sponsored by the FDA, MIT, and industry partners in 2009 and 2010. You can read about the October 2009 workshop here. The most recent workshop was held at MIT on January 19, 2010. In these workshops, two case studies were discussed: the use of diagnostic tests for the HER2 receptor in identifying breast cancer patients who are likely to benefit from treatment with trastuzumab (Genentech/Roche’s Herceptin), and the bapineuzumab/ApoE4 case. The HER2/ trastuzumab relationship is well known and well characterized, and is considered to be a paradigm of stratified medicine. This contrasts with the bapineuzumab/ApoE4 association, which remains a hypothesis pending the results of the Phase III prospective clinical studies.

A growing minority of researchers is skeptical that the amyloid hypothesis is sufficient to account for AD pathogenesis in all stages of the disease or in various disease subpopulations, and they are investigating other pathways that may contribute to the disease, either in combination with the amyloid pathway or as alternative mechanisms. We have discussed alternative hypotheses for AD pathogenesis in a 2004 article published in Genetic Engineering News (available on our website), and in book-length reports published by Cambridge Healthtech Institute in 2006 and in 2009.

The search for alternative hypotheses takes on added urgency because of the clinical failure of several AD drugs that had been designed based on the amyloid hypothesis. These include Neurochem’s (now Bellus Health) Alzhemed (3-amino-1-propanesulfonic acid) and Myriad Pharmaceuticals’ Flurizan (tarenflurbil), both of which failed in Phase III clinical trials. Based on the overall results of the Phase II trial of bapineuzumab, most researchers and industry commentators would add bapineuzumab to the list, unless the stratified Phase III trial shows that the drug is significantly efficacious and safe for ApoE4 noncarriers.

Since ApoE4 carrier status is such a prominent risk factor for developing late-onset AD, might ApoE4 itself be a target for drug discovery in AD? Drs. Kaufer and Gandy suggest that such an approach might be fruitful, whatever the outcome of the Phase III trial of bapineuzumab. Several academic laboratories have been investigating mechanisms by which ApoE4 may be involved in the pathobiology of AD. You may read two recent papers on this subject here and here. ApoE4 may contribute to AD pathogenesis via multiple mechanisms, including by causing synaptic deficits and mitochondrial dysfunction in neurons, and by inducing endoplasmic reticulum stress leading to astrocyte dysfunction.

Given the prominence of ApoE4 expression as a risk factor for AD, the study of the mechanistic basis of ApoE4’s role in AD pathobiology needs greater attention. Hopefully, this research will lead to the development of novel therapeutic strategies for AD.