Future Areas of Progress for Sleep Disorder Care: Asim Roy, MD

"One of our biggest challenges in the space is that either patients don’t respond well, or they’ll get some benefit, but they had these bad side effects that were unsustainable.”

A number of presentations at the 2021 SLEEP Virtual Annual Meeting, June 10-13, featured expanded efficacy and safety data on multiple treatments within the sleep disorders space, as well as those investigational agents currently making their way through the clinical pipeline. Asim Roy, MD, was among the investigators who assessed one such agent, FT218, an investigational, once-nightly sodium oxybate agent, in the pivotal phase 3 REST-ON study (NCT02720744).

Data showed that the drug reduced sleep latency across narcolepsy subtypes and produced greater decreases in weight and body mass index than placebo. Roy, medical director, Ohio State Sleep Medicine Institute, feels as though there has been noticeable strides within the sleep disorders space in recent years, mainly powered by the expanding options of these sodium oxybate agents.

In an interview with NeurologyLive, Roy discussed the growing momentum within the sleep disorder treatment community, provided insight on potential future research, and detailed the challenges that remain with treating these patients.