Minerva Neurosciences Announces Outcome of Type C Meeting with FDA and Next Steps in the Development of Roluperidone

WALTHAM, Mass., Dec. 01, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Minerva Neurosciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: NERV), a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of therapies to treat central nervous system (CNS) disorders, today announced that it has received official meeting minutes from the November 10, 2020 Type C meeting with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regarding development of roluperidone for treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia.

The objective of this meeting was to obtain FDA input regarding the roluperidone data package and its readiness to support a New Drug Application (NDA) submission. The two main topics addressed during the meeting were:

1.   Readiness for submission of NDA

Minerva requested confirmation from FDA that, based on the totality of evidence, the data from the MIN-101C03 (Phase 2b) and MIN-101C07 (Phase 3) studies constitute substantial evidence of the effectiveness of the 64 milligrams (mg) dose of roluperidone for the treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia and would warrant review of an NDA submission.

FDA advised that the Phase 2b study is problematic because it did not use the commercial formulation of roluperidone and was conducted solely outside of the United States. In addition, FDA commented that the Phase 3 study does not appear to be capable of supporting substantial evidence of effectiveness, because neither dose of roluperidone showed a statistically significant separation from placebo at Week 12 in the intent-to-treat (ITT) analysis set. FDA cautioned that an NDA submission based on the current data from the Phase 2b and Phase 3 studies would be highly unlikely to be filed and that, at a minimum, there would be substantial review issues due to the lack of two adequate and well-controlled trials to support efficacy claims for this indication.

FDA acknowledged that the data from the Phase 2b and Phase 3 studies appear to show promising signals and encouraged Minerva to continue the development of roluperidone for treatment of negative symptoms in schizophrenia, which FDA confirmed is an unmet need.

Minerva recognizes FDA’s comments but believes they can be addressed based on published regulatory guidance and precedents. The company has comparable pharmacokinetic data for the formulations used in Phase 2b and Phase 3 (the commercial formulation) and intends to perform a pivotal bioequivalence study to bridge the two formulations. In addition, Minerva believes the Phase 3 study has shown that US data and ex-US data are comparable, and that many precedents exist where drugs were approved by FDA based solely on ex-US data. Minerva believes that, in the Phase 3 study, results from the modified ITT (mITT) analysis set that excludes patients with implausible behavioral and physiological data from one site (17 of a total of 513 patients) address the lack of separation at Week 12.