Repurposing Dexmedetomidine as an Orally Administered Sleep Therapeutic

Insomnia Clinical Trial

Official title: Repurposing Dexmedetomidine as an Orally Administered Sleep Therapeutic

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

The broad objective of this investigation is to assess the safety and efficacy of oral therapy with dexmedetomidine for the induction and maintenance of restful sleep.

Clinical Trial Description

Sleep is a basic human function that occupies approximately one-third of our lives. Much of what is known about the benefits of sleep in humans has been obtained from studies of patients with insomnia, the most common sleep disorder with a reported prevalence of 10 to 15%. Unfortunately, insomnia is an independent risk factor for acute myocardial infarction, coronary heart disease, heart failure, hypertension, diabetes, and death. More so, sleep disturbances lead to neurocognitive deficits such as delirium and psychosis. However, the principal medications (i.e. benzodiazepines, zolpidem) currently used to treat insomnia are associated with side effects such as daytime sedation, delirium, anterograde memory disturbance, and complex sleep-related behaviors. We recently found that a nighttime intravenous bolus administration of dexmedetomidine was associated with normal sleep architecture comprising of rapid eye movement (REM) and non-REM (N1, N2, N3) sleep, with improved next-day psychomotor vigilance performance compared to zolpidem. Presently, dexmedetomidine is only available in an intravenous formulation. The goal of this project is to develop dexmedetomidine, an alpha-2 receptor agonist, into an oral sleep therapeutic with a neurocognitive sparing profile. ;

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Insomnia
• Sleep
• Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders

• NCT number: NCT02818569
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Massachusetts General Hospital
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 1/Phase 2
• Start date: October 2016
• Completion date: June 2018