Nationwide Children's Hospital involved in expanded access program for treatm...( Nationwide Childrens Hospital announ...)

Nationwide Childrens Hospital announced today its involvement in an expanded access program for sapropterin dihydrochloride, or sapropterin, an investigational treatment for phenylketonuria (PKU), a rare genetic metabolic disorder that, if left unmanaged in infants and children, can result in severe mental retardation. Currently, there are eight patients enrolled in the expanded access program at Nationwide Childrens.

Under an expanded access program, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allows early access to drugs that are being developed to treat serious diseases based on certain circumstances.

Individuals with PKU are born with a deficient enzyme called phenylalanine hydroxylase (PAH). With little or no PAH activity, they are unable to metabolize an essential amino acid, called phenylalanine (Phe), which is found in most foods including meat, eggs, dairy, nuts, pasta, bread and all fruits and vegetables. When Phe cannot be metabolized by the body, abnormally-high levels of it accumulate in the blood and are toxic to the brain, potentially causing brain damage that can result in severe mental retardation, seizures, tremors, phobias and general mental and behavioral decline. The only way that PKU patients can manage their disorder is by monitoring their daily intake of Phe; however, compliance with diet is a major problem for PKU patients due to limited food choices, the social limitations of following a strict diet, the poor taste of required formulas, and the availability and cost of specially-produced low-Phe foods.

By making sapropterin available through expanded access, we hope patients living with PKU will experience lower Phe levels and increased Phe tolerance, said Kim McBride, MD, MS an investigator in the Center for Molecular and Human Genetics at The Research Institute at Nationwide Childrens Hospital, and a faculty member at The Ohio State University College of Medicine. Since elevated Phe levels are toxic to the
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