GW Pharmaceuticals Plc ADS (GWPH)

[honeymooner]

Hope that a prescription can mimic marijuana’s benefits
By Kay Lazar

http://www . bostonglobe . com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2014/11/17/some-parents-children-who-have-seizures-are-hoping-that-prescription-drug-will-able-mimic-marijuana-benefits/KoGizuhG99EO3w0RkyOrcO/story.html

Haley Osborn lives at a crossroads. Down one path, her parents are searching for marijuana they hope might ease their daughter’s relentless seizures. And down the other, researchers are hunting for ways to mine marijuana’s potential medicinal properties for patients like Haley to create consistent, reliable prescription drugs.

The 7-year-old Georgetown youngster is racked by seizures 15 to 20 times a day despite taking an experimental drug made from an active ingredient in marijuana, cannabidiol, or CBD, that has shown early promise for some children whose seizures were not quelled by traditional medicine.

At MassGeneral Hospital for Children, some of the children with seizures who are taking a CBD extract as part of an ongoing national study are already reaping benefits. Data released last month by GW Pharmaceuticals, a British company supplying the experimental medication, showed that for the 58 patients nationwide who had been on the drug at least 12 weeks, roughly 40 percent had the frequency of their seizures reduced by at least half.

The data also indicated that the most common side effects were sleepiness and fatigue.

“It is going to be definitely effective for a population of kids with epilepsy, but I know it is not the silver bullet,” said Dr. Elizabeth Thiele, director of Mass. General’s pediatric epilepsy program.

“These are kids who have been on 10 previous treatments without seizure control,” said Thiele, who has enrolled 38 children, and expects a total of 50, in the Boston section of the study.

“If even one of them becomes seizure free, that’s impressive,” Thiele said.

The CBD extract, so far, has not reduced the frequency of Haley Osborn’s seizures, and she has been on the drug since April. But the drug, dissolved in sesame oil and strawberry flavored, has significantly improved Haley’s reading ability, which had been delayed by seizures, and she is much more alert, able to process thoughts more quickly, and displaying a sense of humor — a quality her parents hadn’t seen before.

“That part of it has been great, and that’s why we haven’t given up on the study,” Jill Osborn said.

Rules of the study forbid patients to use any marijuana, so that researchers are certain the effects of the experimental drug, called Epidiolex, are not tainted. Haley is scheduled to be enrolled in the study until April. But her parents, who agonize over the accounts they hear from other states about children’s seizures melting away with marijuana use, will face a dilemma early next year. That’s when Massachusetts’s first marijuana dispensaries are scheduled to open.