"At MTPA, patients have been the driving force behind our work as we strive to develop meaningful treatment options for ALS and continue to tackle unmet needs," said Atsushi Fujimoto, President, MTPA. "Five years ago, we proudly launched Radicava as a treatment option for patients with ALS in the U.S. Now, we continue to push the boundaries of innovation with Radicava ORS, an orally administered option allowing patients flexibility in how they take their medicine."
Radicava ORS is specifically formulated for patients with ALS and provides a flexible administration option (taken orally or via feeding tube) with a small, 5 mL dose, a portable bottle, an oral dosing syringe and no need for patients to refrigerate or reconstitute before taking.1 With appropriate instruction from a healthcare provider (HCP), Radicava ORS may take only a few minutes to administer on treatment days.1 Radicava ORS should be taken in the morning after overnight fasting.1 To learn more about Radicava ORS, visit Radicava.com/update.
"ALS is a progressive disease that, due to its heterogenous nature, impacts patients at different rates with varying symptoms," said Tulio Bertorini, M.D., Professor of Neurology, The University of Tennessee Health Science Center. "Therefore, it is crucial that patients have treatment and formulation options that accommodate their own unique needs, and Radicava ORS provides HCPs who have prescribed their ALS patients edaravone with an alternate delivery option."
The comprehensive clinical development program for edaravone in ALS has spanned over a decade and included multiple clinical trials for the IV and oral formulations. The FDA approval of Radicava ORS is supported by several studies, including data from the pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial (MCI186-19) evaluating 137 ALS patients that showed treatment with Radicava slowed the loss of physical function by 33 percent (approximately one-third) compared to placebo at 24 weeks, as measured by the ALS Functional Rating Scale-Revised (ALSFRS-R), a validated rating instrument for monitoring disease progression in patients.1Additionally, seven Phase 1 clinical pharmacology studies were conducted to examine the pharmacokinetics, safety, drug-to-drug interactions, dosing, bioavailability and bioequivalence of Radicava ORS in healthy individuals and ALS patients with and without a percutaneous endoscopic gastrostomy (PEG) tube/nasogastric (NG) tube, as well as a global Phase 3, 24-week trial demonstrating the safety and tolerability profile of the treatment in 185 patients with ALS. Lastly, there is an ongoing Phase 3 study evaluating the long-term safety and tolerability of Radicava ORS for up to 96 weeks.
The most common adverse events that occurred in greater than 10 percent of patients treated with Radicava were bruising (contusion), problems walking (gait disturbance) and headache. Fatigue was observed in 7.6 percent of patients taking Radicava ORS. Radicava and Radicava ORS are contraindicated in patients with a history of hypersensitivity to edaravone or any of the inactive ingredients of this product.1 Hypersensitivity reactions and anaphylactic reactions have been reported in patients treated with Radicava.
