Open AccessVosoritide treatment accelerates bone growth in children with achondroplasia
Author(s) -
Ravi Savarirayan,
Melita Irving,
Julie Hoover-Fong,
Carlos A. Bacino,
Keiichi Ozono,
Klaus Mohnike,
Valérie CormierDaire,
Antonio Leiva-Gea,
Yasemin Alanay,
Mary E. Andrews,
Chandler Crews,
Cristina Klafehn,
Kala Jayaram,
George Jeha,
Elena Fisheleva,
Alice Huntsman-Labed,
Jonathan Day
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
deleted journal
Language(s) - English
DOI - 10.2217/frd-2021-0009
Subject(s) - achondroplasia , medicine , dwarfism , dysplasia , placebo , pediatrics , side effect (computer science) , alternative medicine , pathology , biology , biochemistry , gene , computer science , programming language
Vosoritide is a drug developed for the treatment of achondroplasia and has demonstrated increases in the growth velocity of children with this condition. Achondroplasia is a skeletal dysplasia (a condition affecting children’s bones and joints meaning they do not grow in the typical way) and is also referred to as dwarfism. There are currently no approved treatments for achondroplasia, except for growth hormone in Japan. When a new drug is being developed, it is essential to conduct clinical studies after many other steps to assess how well the drug works and whether it has any side effects. These studies of new drugs are carried out before the drug is approved to treat, improve, or reduce physical problems of certain conditions. This summary reports the results from two clinical studies looking at vosoritide as a potential treatment for children with achondroplasia. Study A compared different doses of vosoritide to find out which is the safest and shows the best results with the fewest side effects. Study B looked at how well vosoritide works compared with a nonactive medicine (known as a placebo) and the side effects. In these studies, vosoritide increased bone growth velocity in children with achondroplasia. Children receiving the drug every day generally only had mild side effects. Serious health conplications were generally medical events seen in children with achondroplasia even if they do not take vosoritide. No children stopped taking vosoritide during the studies due to safety reasons. How well vosoritide works and the side effects in children over a longer period of time are still being studied. ClinicalTrials.gov NCT numbers: NCT02055157 and NCT03197766 .