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UK: GW's cannabis medicine rolls closer to approval

Citywire.co.uk

Thursday 11 Apr 2002

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GW Pharmaceuticals, the maker of cannabis-based medicine, has reached an
important stage of its product trials, reports Patrick Sherwen.

Prescription medicines go through three phases of trials before they are
submitted to the Medicines Control Agency for approval. In each phase the
number of patients treated is increased. The risk of failure declines with
each phase and once approved they can be sold to the public. Today GW (GWP)
announced it has started four new phase three trials to add to the three
underway.

These new trials will test the cannabis-based medicine's capacity to treat
pain in cases of spinal cord injury and multiple sclerosis (MS). It will
also test the medicine's safety and efficacy as a treatment for neuropathic
pain - pain involving the nervous system - among those with MS and in
general. This pain is categorised as allodynia, a condition in which
usually painless stimuli, such as clothing brushing against skin, hurt the
patient.

GW's executive chairman Dr Geoffrey Guy told Citywire: 'It's the final
straight. In phase two you're still trying out. In phase three your
explaining what you've found.' GW already has three phase trials underway
as part of a rolling programme aiming towards registration. These three are
looking at cannabis's application as a treatment for other symptoms of MS,
cancer pain and brachial plexus injury - a severe form of nerve-damage pain.

Guy told Citywire he expects the company to be ready to apply for
registration by the end of this year so they may receive approval in 2003.
GW is working on a portfolio of different medicines for different
conditions. All are based on cannabis plant extracts but GW manipulates the
plants in order to encourage different qualities according to the final aim
of the medicine. 'The plant can be grown to exhibit different chemical
content,' he said. 'This is done by using breeding techniques, like a
gardener would do with roses. There's no genetic modification or gene
splicing or anything.'

So far GW has found that anecdotal evidence from patients of the virtues of
cannabis as a medicine has been more than borne out by tests. 'What we find
in our trials is exactly what the patients have told us,' he said.

Although GW expects to secure approval from its products by next year it
will continue the trials for many more years as it develops medicines for
other conditions. Those likely to reach the market first will be designed
to tackle pain relief.

GW first came to Citywire's attention when we discovered it had the backing
of Colin Blackbourn, the much-followed smaller companies specialist at
broker Shore Capital.

GW is up 0.5p today at 126.5p.

 

 

 

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