Publications by authors named "D Sciberras"

Background: Padsevonil is an antiseizure medication candidate intended to benefit patients with drug-resistant epilepsy. Our investigations aimed at characterizing pharmacokinetics and drug-drug interaction (DDI) profile of padsevonil.

Research Design And Methods: An overview of preclinical and clinical pharmacology studies conducted during padsevonil development is provided.

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Introduction Pain management is a crucial aspect of patients' perioperative journey and a fundamental duty of every anesthetist. Throughout anesthesia training, there is an emphasis on the management of critical incidents, several of which surround pain management. With changes to the anesthesia curriculum over recent years, variable exposure to training opportunities, and a reduction in clinical hours during training, many trainees report feeling underprepared for their future roles as consultants.

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Volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS) techniques have gained popularity these last years as innovative tool for collection of blood pharmacokinetic (PK) samples in clinical trials as they offer many advantages over dried blood spot and conventional venous blood sampling. The use of Mitra, a blood collection device based on volumetric absorptive microsampling (VAMS) technology, was implemented during clinical development of padsevonil (PSL), an anti-seizure medication (ASM) candidate. The present study describes the approach used to bridge plasma (obtained from conventional venous blood sampling) and blood exposures (obtained with Mitra) to support the use of Mitra as sole blood PK sampling method in clinical trials.

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Rationale: [C]-UCB-J is an emerging tool for the noninvasive measurement of synaptic vesicle density in vivo. Here, we report human biodistribution and dosimetry estimates derived from sequential whole-body PET using two versions of the OLINDA dosimetry program.

Methods: Sequential whole-body PET scans were performed in 3 healthy subjects for 2 h after injection of 254 ± 77 MBq [C]-UCB-J.

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Therapeutic options for patients with treatment-resistant epilepsy represent an important unmet need. Addressing this unmet need was the main factor driving the drug discovery program that led to the synthesis of padsevonil, a first-in-class antiepileptic drug candidate that interacts with two therapeutic targets: synaptic vesicle protein 2 and GABA receptors. Two PET imaging studies were conducted in healthy volunteers to identify optimal padsevonil target occupancy corresponding to levels associated with effective antiseizure activity in rodent models.

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