... The British drugmaker, which develops medicines using cannabis extracts, is putting together the "building blocks" of a research programme into autism, its chief executive told The Telegraph.
Justin Gover said doctors treating severely epileptic children with GW's experimental drug
Epidiolex had observed improvements in behaviour and brain function in those patients who also had autism.
He cautioned that the observations were "no more scientific at this stage" but that he saw an "important role for GW in researching the use of cannabinoids within autism-like disorders".
GW has been testing Epidiolex in a few dozen children with debilitating forms of epilepsy in the US for ar
ound a year and has already seen "promising" results. It has done so under a so-called "expanded access" programme which allows patients with untreatable conditions to try out experimental drugs.
...
Analysts have previously suggested that Epidiolex could also be used in autism since the two conditions are closely associated. As many as a third of people on the autistic spectrum also have epilep
sy...
