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Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals achieves pain treatment win with AFL players

Last updated: 03:30 05 Apr 2018 EDT, First published: 21:25 04 Apr 2018 EDT

AFL match
The drug could be a game changer

Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals Ltd (ASX:PAR) is witnessing remarkable results in AFL players treated with injectable pentosan polysulfate sodium (PPS) for crippling knee, hip and groin pain.

Doctors (including AFL doctors) are treating current and ex-AFL players with PPS under the Therapeutics Goods Administration’s Special Access Scheme.

READ: Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals adds AFL legend to list of osteoarthritis treatment wins

PPS has been used for decades to treat blood clots and bladder syndrome in women but only recently emerged as a treatment option for osteoarthritis, a type of arthritis that results from the breakdown of joint cartilage.

Significantly reduced pain

Paradigm chief executive officer Paul Rennie revealed that six AFL players suffering from osteitis pubis (a common cause of chronic groin pain) were treated with PPS over the off-season.

Rennie said: “They all went from pain scores of six or seven out of 10 to zero.

“It was completely resolved. There’s no doubt it works and the AFL doctors who have used it love it.”

Rennie said that between 40 to 50 current AFL players at seven clubs are using the drug.

Real-world-evidence data to supplement phase II clinical trial

Under the Therapeutics Goods Administration’s (TGA) Special Access Scheme (SAS), doctors treat their patients with the same dosing regimen to the phase II clinical trials.

Currently there about 180 people being treated under the TGA SAS and these data will be important real-world-evidence data that can be used to supplement the phase II clinical data.

Doctors have reported data on the first 45 of 180 patients treated under the TGA SAS. Importantly, pain scores on those 45 patients were reduced on average by 50%.

AFL star added to list of PPS treatment wins

Retired Blues star Andrew Walker, whose AFL career was crippled by chronic knee pain, was one of the first players to trial PPS.

Rennie said: “He could hardly walk between practice sessions and had every available therapy thrown at him — but didn’t respond to any of it

“He is now running between 20 and 30 kilometres a week and has no knee pain and is playing (country) football again.”

READ: Paradigm Biopharmaceuticals’ osteoarthritis trial remains ahead of schedule

The company’s phase IIb clinical trial in participants with knee osteoarthritis and concurrent bone marrow lesions is 50% recruited and remains ahead of schedule.

The data from this clinical trial of PPS treatment is expected to be reported in the third quarter of calendar year 2018.

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