Company: ZVRA
Filing Date: 2025-11-05
Form Type: 10-Q
Source: 0001434647-25-000011
Chunk: 196

Company: ZEVRA THERAPEUTICS, INC.
Filing Date: 2025-11-05
Form: 10-Q
Item: Part I, Item 2
Chunk 196
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 approximately 37,000 patients in the United States. The cardinal feature of IH is excessive daytime sleepiness (“EDS”), characterized by daytime lapses into sleep, or an irrepressible need to sleep that persists even with adequate or prolonged nighttime sleep. Additionally, those with IH have extreme difficulty waking, otherwise known as “sleep inertia,” suffer from severe and debilitating brain fog, and may fall asleep unintentionally or at inappropriate times, also known as narcolepsy. These symptoms often further lead to reported memory problems, difficulty maintaining focus, and depression.

Narcolepsy is a rare, chronic, debilitating neurologic disorder of sleep-wake state instability that impacts up to 200,000 Americans and is primarily characterized by EDS and cataplexy (sudden loss of muscle tone while a person is awake) along with other manifestations of rapid eye movement and sleep dysregulation, which intrude into wakefulness. In most patients, narcolepsy is caused by the loss of hypocretin, a neuropeptide in the brain that supports sleep-wake state stability. Typical symptom onset occurs in adolescence or young adulthood, but it can take up to a decade to be properly diagnosed. Although there are several approved medications for narcolepsy, we believe a treatment option based on serdexmethylphenidate (“SDX”), our proprietary prodrug of d-methylphenidate (“d-MPH”), which has previously been classified as a Schedule IV controlled substance, may be beneficial.

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There is currently only one approved product for the treatment of IH, XYWAV, developed by Jazz Pharmaceuticals. A second product, WAKIX, developed by Harmony Biosciences (“Harmony”), was originally approved for the treatment of EDS or cataplexy in adult patients with narcolepsy. In October 2023, Harmony announced that the difference in outcome for EDS when comparing WAKIX and placebo in its Phase 3 trial with IH patients did not reach statistical significance. Prescribers also utilize narcolepsy medications and various stimulant products “off-label” to treat IH symptoms, with methylphenidate, a stimulant which has been classified by the DEA as a Schedule II controlled substance, being one of the most commonly used stimulants for treating IH. While each of these medications can help to address certain IH symptoms, there are also potential shortcomings, including dosing inconvenience, serious adverse events, such as elevated blood pressure and heart rate, and significant drug-to-drug interactions (“DDIs”),