SciSparc Ltd. (Nasdaq: SPRC) has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has cleared its Investigational New Drug (IND) application for SCI-110, allowing the company to proceed with Phase IIb clinical trials in the U.S. for adult patients with Tourette Syndrome (TS). This regulatory milestone marks a significant step forward in the development of a potential new treatment for this challenging condition.
The Phase IIb clinical trial will be conducted at three leading global centers: the Yale Child Study Center at the Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, the Hannover Medical School in Hannover, Germany, and the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel. The company has already secured Institutional Review Board approvals from all three clinical sites, as well as approvals from related federal administrations.
Trial Design and Objectives
The study is designed to evaluate the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of SCI-110 in adult patients aged 18 to 65 years. Participants will receive a daily oral treatment and will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to receive either SCI-110 or a placebo. The primary efficacy objective is to assess the change in tic severity using the Yale Global Tic Severity Scale (YGTSS), a widely used measure in Tourette's clinical trials. Assessments will be conducted at weeks 12 and 26 of the double-blind phase, compared to baseline.
The primary safety objective of the trial is to evaluate the absolute and relative frequencies of serious adverse events across the entire study population, as well as within the SCI-110 and placebo groups separately.
Unmet Need in Tourette Syndrome Treatment
According to SciSparc CEO Oz Adler, there is a significant unmet medical need in the management of Tourette Syndrome. "As the currently used medications are managing only a small number of disease symptoms with limited efficacy and questionable safety, we believe there is a clear unmet medical need for the management of TS," Adler stated. He added that an ideal therapy for TS would demonstrate notable effectiveness across a broad range of symptoms, while also maintaining a favorable safety profile to ensure high patient compliance.
Promising Phase IIa Results
SciSparc's confidence in SCI-110 is supported by the results of a previous Phase IIa clinical trial conducted at Yale University. This trial demonstrated an average tic reduction of 21% across the entire sample, with nearly 40% of patients experiencing a tic reduction of greater than 25%. "In light of the results from our Phase IIa clinical trial conducted at Yale University... we believe that our innovative drug candidate SCI-110 has the potential to be this desired therapy," said Adler.
SCI-110: A Novel Approach
SCI-110 represents a novel, first-in-class platform that SciSparc hopes will provide a safe and effective treatment for patients with central nervous system disorders. The company's focus is on creating and enhancing a portfolio of technologies and assets based on cannabinoid pharmaceuticals. In addition to Tourette's, SciSparc is also developing SCI-110 for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and agitation, as well as SCI-210 for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and status epilepticus.
