Omeros Announces Phase 3 Results on OMS103HP, Says Symptons Subscale Didn't Meet Statistical Significance

 Omeros Corporation

today reported results from its first pivotal Phase 3 clinical trial evaluating OMS103HP in patients undergoing arthroscopic partial meniscectomy surgery. In this multicenter, double-blind, Phase 3 clinical trial comparing OMS103HP to vehicle control in 344 subjects, the pre-specified primary endpoint was the Symptoms Subscale of the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) – a patient-reported measure that is comprised of questions about knee swelling, clicking, catching and stiffness. In addition, pain measured in the early postoperative period was a pre-specified secondary endpoint. Although the Symptoms Subscale of the KOOS did not reach statistical significance, OMS103HP achieved statistically significant (p=0.0003) reduction of postoperative pain. The pain reduction data were similar in magnitude to those in the Phase 2 clinical trial. OMS103HP also demonstrated improvement across a series of pain-related assessments including postoperative narcotic usage (with more than twice as many OMS103HP-treated subjects taking no postoperative narcotics), incidence of inflammatory adverse events, tourniquet use, and crutch use as well as time to discontinuation of crutches and return to work, a number of which also achieved statistical significance. In this study, as in the earlier clinical trials, OMS103HP was well tolerated. Given the strength and consistency of the data in this Phase 3 clinical trial, Omeros' second OMS103HP Phase 3 trial remains on track and will begin in the first half of 2013. "The data from this Phase 3 trial are compelling and demonstrate the benefits of preemptive and multimodal treatment during surgery," stated William E. Garrett, Jr., M.D., Ph.D, professor of orthopaedic surgery and team physician at Duke University. "Early postoperative pain is predominantly inflammatory pain, and control of postoperative pain and inflammation is critical to functional recovery in arthroscopy patients. While OMS103HP demonstrated positive KOOS data in the Phase 2 trial, the absence of similar data in this trial does not detract from the drug's therapeutic value in light of its reduction of inflammatory pain. Arthroscopy patients with significant early postoperative pain and inflammation generally face a slower and more difficult recovery." OMS103HP, added to standard irrigation solution used during arthroscopy, is Omeros' proprietary PharmacoSurgery™ product designed to provide a multimodal approach to reduce pain and inflammation following arthroscopic surgery. Inhibiting inflammation and resultant postoperative pain is critical to the management of arthroscopy patients. Comprised of only anti-inflammatory active ingredients without any anesthetic agents, such as lidocaine or bupivacaine, and delivered directly to the joint in the arthroscopic irrigation solution, use of OMS103HP avoids the frequently reported damage to cartilage cells due to intraarticular delivery of local anesthetics as well as the detrimental effects of systemically delivered analgesics. Results from this first Phase 3 arthroscopic meniscectomy clinical trial are expected to be presented at an upcoming major orthopedic sports medicine meeting. Omeros also plans to publish the results in a leading peer-reviewed arthroscopy journal.