This fall, The FDA recommended that Teva Neuroscience’s drug rasagiline, brand name Azilect, should not be granted status “to slow the clinical progression of PD.”  In this podcast, Dave Iverson speaks with MJFF’s Brian Fiske about what this recommendation could mean for those living with PD.

Teva Seeks Label Change for Azilect

To read more about the FDA’s recommendation, check out this Fox Foundation News in Context with Parkinson’s Progression Markers Initiative (PPMI) Principal Investigator Dr. Ken Marek.

In this first edition of “The Sherer Report,” which will become an ongoing series, Todd Sherer, PhD, MJFF CEO, highlights recent developments in three of the Foundation’s high-priority research areas, which hold clear implications for those living with PD today.

New Approaches to Treat Symptoms

Many of the motor symptoms of Parkinson’s result from a decrease in dopamine, a brain chemical that helps control movement, balance and walking. For the last 40 years, nearly every treatment for PD, including the currently available medications Sinemet, Mirapex, Azilect and Stalevo, have focused on attempting to replace this lost dopamine.

However, new lines of research are developing PD treatments based on different mechanisms that target brain chemicals other than dopamine. These approaches could replace or supplement existing therapies, limiting side effects such as dyskinesias, the uncontrollable movements that are a common side effect of existing PD drugs, while targeting some of the currently untreated symptoms of PD. Continue reading “The Sherer Report” »