Memantine and trazodone to be removed from the MND-SMART trial

The MND-SMART trial is the largest clinical trial in MND in the UK and has now recruited nearly 600 people living with MND across all four nations. The trial is designed to test multiple drugs at once so that researchers can get definitive answers about the efficacy of new drugs rapidly. In addition, drugs that are found to be ineffective can be removed from the trial and new drugs can be added once the trial is already running.

This week, it has been announced that the first two drugs on MND-SMART, memantine and trazodone, will be removed because the interim analysis revealed there is no benefit of these drugs compared to placebo.

We understand this will be disappointing news to the MND community but would like to thank all the participants who have taken part in the trial so far - without high quality research like this we are unable to rule out drugs that don’t work or find new drugs that do work.

Amantadine, the drug that was added to the trial in the Spring of 2023, will remain on the trial and an interim analysis is expected to take place in 2024. Further drugs are expected to be added to the trial over the coming years.

For further information about this latest update, please visit the MND-SMART website or, if you are enrolled on the trial, please speak to your site team.