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Randomized Controlled Trial
. 2024 Jan;90(1):321-335.
doi: 10.1111/bcp.15910. Epub 2023 Oct 11.

Administration of oxathridine, a first-in-class histamine-3 receptor partial agonist in healthy male volunteers: Central nervous system depression and pseudo-hallucinations

Francis M Dijkstra  1   2 , Rob G J A Zuiker  1   2 , Jules A A C Heuberger  1 , Kawita M S Kanhai  1   2 , Marieke De Kam  1 , Thierry Duvauchelle  3 , Jeanne-Marie Lecomte  3 , Olivier Labeeuw  4 , Laurent Landais  4 , Xavier Ligneau  4 , Philippe Robert  4 , Marc Capet  4 , Jean-Charles Schwartz  3 , Joop M A van Gerven  1   2
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Free article
Randomized Controlled Trial

Administration of oxathridine, a first-in-class histamine-3 receptor partial agonist in healthy male volunteers: Central nervous system depression and pseudo-hallucinations

Francis M Dijkstra et al. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2024 Jan.
Free article

Abstract

Aims: To characterise the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics (PK) and pharmacodynamics (PD) of single ascending doses of oxathridine, a first-in-class histamine-3 receptor partialagonist, in healthy male volunteers.

Methods: A randomised, double-blind, placebo-controlled study including the NeuroCart, consisting of a battery of drug sensitive neurophysiological tests, was performed. Oxathridine was administered orally as an aqueous solution. After dosing, safety and NeuroCart tests (adaptive tracking [AT], body sway [BS], saccadic peak velocity [SPV], smooth pursuit [SP] eye movements, VAS according to Bond and Lader, VAS according to Bowdle [VAS B&L, Bowdle], pharmaco-electroencephalogram [pEEG], Sustained Attention to Response Task [SART]) were performed at set times.

Results: Forty volunteers completed the study. Given doses were: 0.5, 2.5, 5, 0.25 and 1.5 mg. At 5 mg, unacceptable and unanticipated adverse events (AEs) of (orthostatic) hypotension and pseudo-hallucinations were reported. Statistically significant effects ([CI]; p-value) of 2.5 mg and 5 mg oxathridine were observed on AT ([-8.28, -1.60]; p = 0.0048), ([-8.10, -1.51]; p = 0.00530), BS ([0.6, 80.2]; p = 0.0455), ([5.9, 93.1]; p = 0.0205) and SPV ([-59.0, -15.9]; p = 0.0011), ([-43.9, -1.09]; p = 0.0399), respectively. Oxathridine 5 mg significantly increased all three VAS Bowdle subscale scores; VAS external ([0.183, 0.476]; p = <.0001), VAS internal ([0.127, 0.370]; p = 0.0001) and VAS feeling high ([0.263, 0.887]; p = 0.0006).

Conclusion: NeuroCart tests indicated central nervous system (CNS) depressant effects. Oxathridine also unexpectedly caused pseudohallucinations. Although this led to the decision to stop further development of oxathridine, these observations suggest that the H3R system could be an interesting new target for the development of novel antipsychotics.

Keywords: first-in-man; histamine-3 partial agonist; pharmacodynamics; pharmacokinetics; tolerability; translatability.

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References

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