Neuropsychiatric Disease and Treatment (Aug 2017)
Efficacy and safety of paliperidone palmitate three-monthly formulation in East Asian patients with schizophrenia: subgroup analysis of a global, randomized, double-blind, Phase III, noninferiority study
Abstract
Adam J Savitz,1 Haiyan Xu,2 Srihari Gopal,1 Isaac Nuamah,2 Paulien Ravenstijn,3 David Hough,1 Maju Mathews,4 Yu Feng,5 Lu Yu,6 Masayoshi Takahashi,7 Dennis Liu,8 Gang Wang,9 Jin-Sang Yoon,10 Jiahn-Jyh Chen11 1Department of Central Nervous System, 2Department of Clinical Biostatistics, Janssen Research & Development, LLC, Titusville, NJ, USA; 3Department of Clinical Pharmacology, Janssen Research & Development, Beerse, Belgium; 4Global Medical Affairs, Neurosciences, Janssen Research & Development, NY, USA; 5Medical Affairs, Neurosciences, Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson and Johnson, Singapore; 6Department of Clinical Development, Janssen Research & Development, Beijing, China; 7Department of Central Nervous System, Janssen Pharmaceutical KK, Tokyo, Japan; 8Playford Community Team, Northern Adelaide Local Health Network, Adelaide, SA, Australia; 9National Clinical Research Center for Mental Disorders, Beijing Anding Hospital, Affiliated Capital University of Medical Science, Beijing, China; 10Department of Psychiatry, Chonnam National University Hospital, Gwangju, South Korea; 11Department of Geriatric Psychiatry, Taoyuan Mental Hospital, Taoyuan, Taiwan Objective: To demonstrate the efficacy and safety of paliperidone palmitate three-monthly (PP3M) formulation in an East Asian population with schizophrenia by subgroup analysis of a double-blind (DB), multicenter, noninferiority study. Patients and methods: Of 1,429 patients who entered the open-label (OL) phase, 510 were East Asian (China: 296 [58%], Japan: 175 [34%], South Korea: 19 [4%] and Taiwan: 20 [4%]). In the 17-week OL phase, patients received paliperidone palmitate once-monthly (PP1M) formulation on day 1 (150 mg eq.), day 8 (100 mg eq.) and once-monthly thereafter (50–150 mg eq., flexible). Following the OL phase, patients (n=344 East Asian) entered DB phase and were randomized (1:1) to PP1M (n=174) or PP3M (n=170). Primary efficacy endpoint was the percentage of patients who remained relapse free at the end of the 48-week DB phase, using Kaplan–Meier cumulative survival estimate. Secondary efficacy endpoints included change from DB baseline to endpoint in Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale, Clinical Global Impression Severity, Personal and Social Performance scores and symptomatic remission. Additional assessments included caregiver burden and safety. Results: A total of 285/344 (83%) randomized East Asian patients completed the DB phase. The percentage of patients who had a relapse event was similar on comparing PP3M (17 [10.2%]) to PP1M (20 [11.8%]), and also for Japan (PP3M: 9 [17.6%], PP1M: 13 [23.2%]) and China (PP3M: 6 [5.9%], PP1M: 7 [6.9%]). Mean change from baseline in secondary efficacy parameters was similar to the global population, regardless of treatment. Symptomatic remission was attained by 50% of the treated patients. Caregiver burden was significantly reduced (P<0.001) following treatment with PP3M/PP1M. Frequency of treatment-emergent adverse events in PP3M group during DB phase was greater in the East Asian subgroup (81%) than the global population (68%) and was higher in Japan (92%) than China (75%). Conclusion: Results suggest that PP3M is efficacious in the East Asian subgroup. Although treatment-emergent adverse events were slightly higher in the East Asian subgroup versus the global population, no new safety signals were identified. Keywords: antipsychotic, caregiver burden, depot paliperidone palmitate, East Asia, long-acting injectable, paliperidone palmitate once-monthly, paliperidone palmitate three-monthly, schizophrenia, symptom remission