Sleep Medicine has published an article that reviews the mechanism of action of available treatments for patients with narcolepsy.
“Harmony is committed to furthering research for the treatment of patients with narcolepsy with the aim to help those living with this rare disorder,” says Jeffrey Dayno, MD, chief medical officer at Harmony Biosciences LLC, which provided editorial and medical writing assistance for the paper, in a release. “This publication provides healthcare professionals an important resource to inform key considerations such as mechanism of action, pharmacokinetics, and abuse potential when evaluating potential treatment options for patients with narcolepsy.”
The article, “Update on the Pharmacologic Management of Narcolepsy: Mechanisms of Action and Clinical Implications,” authored by Michael J. Thorpy, MB, ChB, and Richard K. Bogan, MD, was published online in September 2019 and will appear in print in the April 2020 issue of the journal.
As patients with narcolepsy require ongoing pharmacologic management to reduce symptoms and improve functioning, the goal of the article is to review the multiple neurotransmitter systems that are important to maintaining wakefulness and analyze various treatment options along with their mechanisms of action (MOA) for patients living with narcolepsy. What’s more, the article discusses clinical implications of differences in MOA between treatments. Among those discussed is Harony’s WAKIX (pitolisant) and its differentiated MOA that increases histamine transmission in the brain and the release of other neurotransmitters that promote wakefulness.
