Alkermes announced the Psychopharmacologic Drugs Advisory Committee and the Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee, appointed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), met to review the company's New Drug Application (NDA) for ALKS 5461. The committee jointly voted that the benefit-risk profile was not adequate to support approval (Vote: 2 Yes/ 21 No). ALKS 5461 is a once-daily, oral investigational medicine with a novel mechanism of action for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in patients with an inadequate response to standard antidepressant therapies.
"We were disappointed and surprised by the FDA's characterization of the safety and efficacy data for ALKS 5461 and the resulting outcome of the Advisory Committee vote, particularly for the patients, their families and treatment providers who need and deserve access to novel therapies that work differently than currently available antidepressants," said Richard Pops, Chief Executive Officer of Alkermes. "We remain steadfast in our commitment to make a meaningful difference in the lives of people suffering with serious mental health conditions, and will continue to work with the FDA as it completes its review of the ALKS 5461 regulatory submission."
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Advisory committees provide the FDA with independent expert advice and recommendations on the safety and efficacy of potential new medicines. The advisory committee's recommendation, while not binding, will be considered by the FDA in its review of the NDA that Alkermes has submitted for ALKS 5461. The FDA has set a Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) target action date for the ALKS 5461 NDA of Jan. 31, 2019.
The NDA submission for ALKS 5461 is based on results from a clinical efficacy and safety package with data from more than 30 clinical trials and more than 1,500 patients with MDD. Throughout the clinical development program, ALKS 5461 demonstrated a consistent profile of antidepressant activity, safety and tolerability in the adjunctive treatment of MDD.
ALKS 5461 is a proprietary, investigational, once-daily oral medicine that acts as an opioid system modulator and represents a novel mechanism of action for the adjunctive treatment of major depressive disorder (MDD) in patients with an inadequate response to standard antidepressant therapies. ALKS 5461 is a fixed-dose combination of buprenorphine, a partial mu-opioid receptor agonist and kappa-opioid receptor antagonist, and samidorphan, a mu-opioid receptor antagonist.