Impact of Daridorexant on Sleep, Daytime Alertness, and Smoking

Starting soon · Phase 4 · Has a placebo group

Conditions studied: Smoking, Nicotine, Tobacco, Addiction, Substance Use Disorders, Insomnia, Sleep

In brief

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death in the U.S., with 480,000 deaths per year and 7.7 million deaths globally. A major clinical symptom associated with abstinence from both licit and illicit drugs is insomnia, which is a clinically verified, major risk factor for relapse. Roughly half of the 40 million smokers in the U.S. attempt to quit annually, with very low rates of success. One major hurdle is poor sleep quality during abstinence. Compounding the problem is that some pharmaceuticals to help reduce smoking can increase insomnia. Poor sleep is recognized as a major impediment to maintaining abstinence from several drugs of abuse, including nicotine. Blockers of orexin have recently been proposed as a promising therapy for smoking cessation. Insomnia has been reported in up to 40% of smokers, and 80% report regular sleep disturbances, which can be amplified during abstinence. A new orexin blocker, daridorexant, was FDA approved within the past two years for the treatment of insomnia, and while it has been tested in healthy individuals with insomnia, it has not been tested in smokers, who suffer from insomnia, particularly during the withdrawal phase when trying to quit. Daridorexant has an improved profile of beneficial effects for those with insomnia, the most notable advantage being its shorter duration of action that promotes daytime alertness, which is problematic for both active smokers and smokers during withdrawal. Poor sleep leads to daytime sleepiness, which often leads to smoking to maintain alertness.

Key facts

Study ID
NCT07328594
Run by
Legacy Health System
People needed
44
Starts
2026-02-10
Expected to finish
2027-09-30
Last updated by the study team
2026-01-09

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 55. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

Where it is running

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

Trial information comes from ClinicalTrials.gov and is refreshed daily. TrialsForMe does not provide medical care and does not run the studies it lists.