The ELEKTRA clinical trial assessing the investigational oral therapy soticlestat (OV935/TAK-935) in children with Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS) has completed patient enrollment, Ovid Therapeutics recently announced.
“We completed enrollment significantly ahead of schedule in our placebo-controlled Phase 2 ELEKTRA trial in children with Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, and as a result, we now expect data to be available in the third quarter of 2020,” Amit Rakhit, MD, president and chief medical officer of Ovid, said in a press release.
Soticlestat was developed by Takeda Pharmaceuticals in collaboration with Ovid Therapeutics for the treatment of rare developmental and epileptic encephalopathies, including Dravet and LGS.
The investigational therapy is a potent, highly-selective, first-in-class inhibitor of the enzyme cholesterol 24-hydroxylase, which has a major role in clearing cholesterol in the brain. By blocking this enzyme, soticlestat is thought to reduce the activation of a neuronal signaling pathway — glutamatergic signaling via NMDA receptors — potentially reducing seizure susceptibility and improving seizure control in patients with Dravet, according to Ovid.