Cannabis 'eases pain caused by arthritis'...

A study by scientists in Bath shows cannabis can significantly ease the pain of rheumatoid arthritis.

Taken in medicine form, the class C drug was shown to improve the pain of movement, pain at rest, quality of sleep and ease inflammation.

The researchers say the element of the drug which creates a potential "high" is an essential therapeutic component and cannot be removed.

The authors now want to conduct a larger trial to back up their findings.

Fifty-six patients took part in the 49-day trial led by David Blake, professor of bone and joint medicine at the Royal National Hospital for Rheumatic Diseases, Bath, and the University of Bath.

Of those, 31 were given a cannabis-based medicine (CBM) - brand name Sativex - while 27 received a placebo.

Sativex uses two key components from a cannabis plant which are shown to have anti-inflammatory properties.

Patients took the medicine in the evening via a mouth spray and started with one dose, gradually building up to a maximum of six doses.

The results of the trial, published in the medical journal Rheumatology show that the CBM produced "statistically significant" results.

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Cannabis trial results
On a scale of 0-10 for pain on movement, with 0 equalling no pain, those sufferers taking the CBM reduced their pain from 7 to 4.8

Those on the placebo cut their pain from 6.7 to 5.3

Regarding quality of sleep, those on the CBM reduced their pain from 5.7 to 3.4, while the placebo group moved from 5.8 to 4.6

On a scale of 0-100 for intensity of pain at present, patients taking CBM reduced pain from 48 to 33, while those on the placebo stayed the same at 50

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/bristol/4419402.stm

GW Pharma: Sativex explored for use in arthritis

GW Pharma: Sativex explored for use in arthritis

GW Pharma has reported positive preliminary results for its cannabis-based medicine...

10 Nov 2005
- In the first ever controlled trial of a cannabis-based medicine in rheumatoid arthritis, GW Pharmaceutical's Sativex was found to offer significant pain-relieving effects and even showed potential in slowing disease progression. Having suffered various development setbacks, GW Pharma will hope that this latest research can boost Sativex's prospects for regulatory approval.

Sativex uses two key components from a cannabis plant, Tetrahydrocannabinol and cannabidiol, both of which have been shown to have anti-inflammatory properties. In the small, five-week randomized study, the cannabis-based drug produced statistically significant improvements in pain of movement, pain at rest, quality of sleep, and disease activity.

GW Pharma claims that Sativex may also slow disease progression, although key factors that assess facets such as joint space narrowing have not been reported. Nevertheless, with such promising results, GW Pharma will now look towards the initiation of a larger trial to consolidate its findings.

Unless GW Pharma can prove a slow in disease progression it is unlikely that Sativex will be used as a disease modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD) but as a pain killer. Therefore instead of competing with novel DMARD products in the EU, the drug is likely to be competing with established NSAID painkillers such as diclofenac often used in both rheumatoid and osteoarthritis sufferers. It could also be an alternative to the controversial COX-2 inhibitors of which only Celebrex and Arcoxia are still available in the EU after the withdrawals of Vioxx and Bextra due to cardiovascular side-effects.

Although GW Pharma, in partnership with Bayer, has already launched Sativex for multiple sclerosis (MS) patients in Canada, the drug has suffered numerous delays during its development in Europe. In June, for example, UK regulators refused to grant the product a marketing license and asked for more data. Moreover, the use of this cannabis-based medicine is not predicted in the US with the current administration, a factor that will significantly damage predicted sales of this potentially wide-reaching product.


GW Pharma must therefore restrict its focus to Europe, with this latest trial, and a recent approval in Spain, offering hope that additional data will be able to satisfy the concerns of regulators.

Source: Datamonitor Commentwire
http://www.pharmaceutical-business-...asp?guid=F22FC99F-E2BE-45B7-ACC8-198F8F190DF2