Two cannabis-based medicines for patients with severe epilepsy or multiple sclerosis have been approved for use by the National Health Service (or NHS) in England. The United Kingdom’s drugs advisory body, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, or NICE, issued new guidelines recommending that the two medicines […]

CBD is the second-most prevalent ingredient in marijuana but is derived from hemp, a cousin of marijuana. Epidyolex treatment would be for seizures associated with two rare types of epilepsy – Dravet syndrome and Lennox-Gastaut syndrome.

Epidyolex has been reported as reducing seizures associated with Lennox-Gastaut syndrome, considered the most difficult to treat, by up to 40 percent in some cases.

The UK law was changed in November 2018 to allow specialist doctors to prescribe cannabis medicines, but this has happened in only a handful of cases, the BBC reported. Each country within the UK makes its own decision on drug approval, and NICE guidance should also apply in Wales and Northern Ireland, while Scotland could follow suit next year, it added.

Professor Helen Cross, a consultant in paediatric neurology at Great Ormond Street Hospital, who led UK trials of Epidyolex, told the BBC it was “great news”.

“Dravet and Lennox Gastaut syndromes are both complex difficult epilepsies with limited effective treatment options and this gives patients another option … that could make a difference to care,” she said.

Click here to view original web page at global.chinadaily.com.cn