The production and sale of Orzeyful, a therapeutic drug for narcolepsy -- a sleep disorder that causes sudden, severe daytime drowsiness -- have been given the green light by an expert committee of Japan's Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry.

If the health ministry officially approves Orzeyful, the drug will become the first in Japan that treats one of the underlying causes of narcolepsy.

Orzeyful, whose generic name is oveporexton, was developed by Takeda Pharmaceutical Co., which applied for approval in March earlier this year. The drug is intended to treat the type of narcolepsy caused by a deficiency of orexin, a neurotransmitter that regulates sleep and wakefulness.

Patients will take the medicine twice a day. It promotes wakefulness and improves symptoms such as severe daytime sleepiness and cataplexy -- sudden muscle weakness triggered by strong emotions such as surprise or laughter.

The health ministry plans to formally approve the production and sale of the drug within about three weeks. Orzeyful has recently been approved in China and the United States.

Orexin was discovered by Prof. Masashi Yanagisawa when he was working at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in the 1990s. Yanagisawa then discovered that a deficiency of the substance causes narcolepsy. He now works at the University of Tsukuba.

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This article is from The Yomiuri Shimbun. Neither Dow Jones Newswires, MarketWatch, Barron's nor The Wall Street Journal were involved in the creation of this content.

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