Biotech Values

[biotech jim]

thanks for posting that. is this the first we heard of this? - narcolepsy

This is not new, as I had posted many moons ago on SI that narcolepsy was a theoretical concern, as it is seen in the knockout mice, as reported initially in 1999 by Yanigasawa's lab:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10481909

"Neurons containing the neuropeptide orexin (hypocretin) are located exclusively in the lateral hypothalamus and send axons to numerous regions throughout the central nervous system, including the major nuclei implicated in sleep regulation. Here, we report that, by behavioral and electroencephalographic criteria, orexin knockout mice exhibit a phenotype strikingly similar to human narcolepsy patients, as well as canarc-1 mutant dogs, the only known monogenic model of narcolepsy. Moreover, modafinil, an anti-narcoleptic drug with ill-defined mechanisms of action, activates orexin-containing neurons. We propose that orexin regulates sleep/wakefulness states, and that orexin knockout mice are a model of human narcolepsy, a disorder characterized primarily by rapid eye movement (REM) sleep dysregulation."

As to your next question, "i thought next mourning impairment was not issue here?"

Could be a mourning problem, but I think you meant a morning problem. The next day hangover effects are different from the narcolepsy-like syndrome. Narcolepsy is excessive daytime sleepiness. The hangover effect of the GABAergic drugs typically come from too long PK, in which residual drug results in the hangover effect. I need to look into the MRK data/documents to understand the so-called hangover effects here. From memory, though (no pun intended), MRK did a driving study that supported the view of no residual effects.