Pitolisant for treating narcolepsy in children and adolescents

Pitolisant is currently in clinical development for the treatment of narcolepsy with or without cataplexy in children and adolescents under the age of 18. Narcolepsy is a rare and long-term sleep disorder that affects the brain’s ability to regulate the normal sleep-wake cycle. Symptoms include excessive daytime sleepiness, sleep paralysis, hallucinations, and cataplexy – a sudden loss of muscle tone while a person is awake leads to weakness and a loss of voluntary muscle control. Fifty percent of individuals with narcolepsy report experiencing symptoms before the age of 18, yet there is only one medicine licensed in the United Kingdom to manage narcolepsy in people younger than 18.