2 New Arbaclofen Studies Getting Lots of Press!

Two complementary studies were just published in Science Translational Medicine, and they’ve been getting a ton of attention in the media. Since lots of people are asking about these articles, and lots of reporters are calling to get my comments (and subsequently misquoting virtually everything I tell them,) I thought I’d give my official commentary here. .................................................................................................... The first article (Henderson et al.) comes from researchers at Seaside Therapeutics, along with multiple academic collaborators around the world (including some of FRAXA’s favorite past grantees!) The authors present a series of experiments demonstrating preclinical validation of arbaclofen as a potentially disease modifying therapeutic in fragile X. This is significant, because arbaclofen entered clinical trials based on clinical observation of beneficial responses to (regular) baclofen in patients with fragile X, but without much preclinical testing in animal models of fragile X. Using a number of protocols previously established and accepted by fragile X researchers (and virtually all funded by FRAXA), this team showed that arbaclofen can rescue abnormal protein synthesis, AMPA receptor trafficking, audiogenic seizures, and dendritic spine abnormalities in the KO mouse. Thus, arbaclofen has passed a lot of the same tests that mGluR5 antagonists have passed to demonstrate potential for disease modification. While there is no single lab test which can show that a drug can cure fragile X, we think that the ability to correct a broad array of abnormalities, as shown in this study, strongly suggests that a drug strategy may be able to alter the course of fragile X (and therefore be “disease modifying”.) So, this looks really good for arbaclofen. As always, the usual caveats apply: mice aren’t humans, and the most critical aspect of translating this kind of preclinical finding into disease modifying clinical treatment is dosage. The authors of the study were careful to utilize realistic and practical doses of arbaclofen in their experiments, but it is always possible that the doses which can be tolerated by fragile X patients will not be adequate for truly disease-modifying effects (though perhaps still adequate for useful psychotropic effects.) ...................................................................................................... The second paper (Berry-Kravis et al.) presented the data from Seaside Therapeutics’ Phase II trial of arbaclofen in 63 subjects with fragile X; this seems to be the article that is getting most of the attention from the science press. It is essential to understand that Phase II clinical trials are primarily designed to demonstrate the safety and tolerability of the test drug in the target population (i.e. fragile X.) Efficacy is a secondary consideration, but criteria are specified in advance which can provide an initial demonstration of efficacy, and a Phase II trial can be quite useful for defining qualitative aspects of the drug response. In this article, it was clear that arbaclofen was quite safe and well tolerated; indeed, the low rate of side effects compared to placebo might suggest that the dose range chosen for the study was a bit too low. While this trial failed to demonstrate any advantage (statistically, or even numerically) of arbaclofen over placebo in the chosen primary outcome measure (the Irritability subscale of the Aberrant Behavior Checklist, or ABC-I) there was a definite sense from parents and the clinicians conducting the study that those on the active drug did better than those on placebo (“blinded treatment preference”.) In other words, the clinicians and the people closest to the trial subjects could tell who was on the active drug, with a moderate degree of certainty, and those subjects seemed to do better. Unfortunately, this is not the kind of outcome measure that the FDA would allow for approval of a new drug, but it is an indication that arbaclofen is doing something useful. .................................................................................................... As outlined in the article, things got much more interesting when the data were examined after the fact (“post hoc analysis”.) While the Irritability subscale of the larger ABC (the designated primary outcome measure) did not change with arbaclofen treatment, the Lethargy and Social Withdrawal (L/SW) subscale did improve slightly. Moreover, a recent re-factoring of the ABC to make it more “fragile X friendly” showed that the L/SW scale could be replaced with a slightly modified Social Avoidance subscale which was more relevant to fragile X. If the trial results were analyzed in light of this fragile X-specific re-factoring of the ABC, and if only the subjects with elevated Social Avoidance scores were included in the analysis (roughly half of the study population,) then arbaclofen appeared to lower Social Avoidance scores significantly. Additionally, subjects entering the study with elevated Social Avoidance subscale scores showed statistically significant improvement on the Clinical Global Impression Improvement scale (CGI-I), a standard assessment which is considered an acceptable outcome measure by the FDA. Unfortunately, post hoc analysis is not acceptable for FDA approval. But this kind of analysis can inform subsequent studies, and Seaside is now conducting Phase III trials of arbaclofen, using the outcome measures found in this study to be most reliable in demonstrating the therapeutic effects of arbaclofen. So, in the end, perhaps the greatest value of this clinical trial is that it will make future trials of arbaclofen (and perhaps other fragile X treatments) better, and more likely to succeed.