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MediciNova Announces the Presentation of Positive Results from Phase 2 Trial of MN‑166 (ibudilast) in Alcohol Use Disorder at the American Psychological Association 2020 Annual Convention
LA JOLLA, Calif., Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MediciNova, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company traded on the NASDAQ Global Market (NASDAQ:MNOV) and the
About this update from Medicinova, Inc.
[{"type":"text","content":"LA JOLLA, Calif., Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- MediciNova, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company traded on the NASDAQ Global Market (NASDAQ:MNOV) and the JASDAQ Market of the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Code Number: 4875), today announced that Principal Investigator, Lara Ray, PhD, Professor at the Department of Psychology, University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) presented the results of the Ibudilast and Alcohol Use Disorder Phase 2 trial at the American Psychological Association 2020 Annual Convention held online.\n The clinical trial is a collaborative effort between MediciNova and Dr. Lara Ray, Professor, Department of Psychology and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, Brain Research Institute at UCLA and is funded by the Center for Study of Opioid Receptors and Drugs of Abuse (CSORDA; National Institute on Drug Abuse Grant P50-DA005010). This study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 2 trial to evaluate the effect of 14 days of ibudilast treatment on heavy drinking days and alcohol neural cue reactivity, and to test if neural activation to alcohol cues, evaluated by functional magnetic resonance (fMRI) neuroimaging, is predictive of drinking outcomes. A total of 52 alcohol use disorder (AUD) patients were enrolled in this trial. The highlights of Dr. Ray’s presentation are as follows: Drinking Outcomes: Ibudilast significantly reduced the number of heavy drinking days compared to placebo (p=0.03) Alcohol Neural Cue Reactivity: There was a significant effect of ibudilast on alcoholic beverage images (ALC) vs. non-alcoholic beverage images (BEV) percent signal change in the bilateral ventral striatum (VS) evaluated by fMRI (p=0.02) Ibudilast attenuated alcohol cue-elicited activation in the VS relative to placebo Predicting Drinking by Medication: Significant interaction between ibudilast and activation in the VS on subsequent drinking (p=0.02) Patients treated with ibudilast and had attenuated VS activation drank the least in the week after the scan Illustrates how neuroimaging (alcohol cue reactivity paradigm) can help inform the neurobiological mechanism of action of a novel pharmacotherapy Yuichi Iwaki, MD, PhD, President and Chief Executive Officer of MediciNova, Inc. commented, “We are extremely pleased with the positive results from the UCLA alcohol use disorder Phase 2 trial conduc...