Many with Parkinson’s experience depression, and it’s not just the kind of reactive depression felt by those learning of their diagnosis. In Parkinson’s disease (PD), this symptom can be caused by the biological processes associated with what is happening during the disease course.
Physicians have long prescribed antidepressants for Parkinson’s patients. But since the nature of depression in PD has its own unique causes, questions continually arise as to whether certain antidepressants are actually right for people with the disease. To date, doctors have had to largely base their understandings of what works and what doesn’t work on observational evidence from what they’ve seen in their own practice, an inexact science at best.
Study of Antidepressants in Parkinson’s disease or SAD-PD, a first-of-its-kind study published in the medical journal Neurology, has found that two common antidepressants ease depression in people with PD without aggravating motor symptoms. The drugs tested in the study, led by Irene Hegeman Richard, MD, of the University of Rochester, were paroxetine (brand name Paxil) and venlafaxine extended release (brand name Effexor XR).
Richard’s team, which included investigators from 20 different university sites throughout North America, performed a three-month double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial for depression, funded by the National Institutes of Health. They found that those taking either drug experienced a significantly greater improvement in symptoms related to depression versus those taking a placebo pill.
The long, strange ride continues for Northera, Chelsea Therapeutics’ candidate to treat orthostatic hypotension in Parkinson’s and other diseases, which was recently denied approval by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Those living with orthostatic hypotension — a sudden drop in blood pressure when standing up, which can cause dizziness, falls and injury — will have to continue to wait for a drug after the PD community’s hopes were raised when an advisory committee recommended approving the drug.
Northera is the brand name for droxidopa, which has been approved to treat orthostatic hypotension in Japan since 1989. In mid-February, Chelsea voluntarily released news of safety concerns about the drug (a highly unusual move) and the company lost a third of its market value in the wake of that first announcement. Then, just two days later, an FDA advisory committee recommended that the FDA approve the drug.
Following the advisory committee decision in late February which had ruled 7-4 in favor of Northera being approved, there was speculation that the committee may have been willing to tolerate a somewhat higher level of risk regarding safety given that there was no available treatment for orthostatic hypotension. Usually, FDA rules in line with advisory committee recommendations. Not this time.
If drug development in general unfolds at a snail’s pace, central nervous system (CNS) drug development moves at the clip of a banana slug (the world’s slowest known mollusk). That’s the finding from a new study, released last week by the Tufts Center for the Study of Drug Development, which has attached an updated and frustrating figure to the problem: It takes 35 percent longer to bring CNS drugs to market than the average for all drugs in the development pipeline.
Why so slow? Our Foundation is well-acquainted with the challenges that hold up drug development for Parkinson’s and other CNS disorders, and is working hard on solutions.
The Michael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research is excited to kick off our 2012 Seminar Call Series. Join us and leading experts in the field to learn more about relevant Parkinson’s disease topics and Foundation news with our Seminar Call Series. Listen in for one or join them all – choose the topics that interest you. See the calendar of scheduled calls below and RSVP to hottopics@michaeljfox.org to confirm your attendance. Follow along on Twitter with hashtag #MJFFChat. Continue reading “The 2012 Michael J. Fox Foundation Seminar Call Series” »
We’re excited to launch our new video series, Ask the MD, featuring The Michael J. Fox Foundation’s staff Neurologist and Movement Disorder Specialist, Maurizio Facheris, MD. Do you have a question for Maurizio? Share it with us in the comments below to be featured in an upcoming video.
While levodopa is the gold standard therapy for Parkinson’s disease (PD), current delivery methods have their limitations. Many patients who take it experience “off” periods, when the medication’s effects wear off before they are ready to take their next dose, leaving them in a state where symptoms like lack of mobility may return. Those taking levodopa also risk developing dyskinesias, the excessive and uncontrollable movements that are among the most difficult aspects of the disease to manage.
The exact cause of Parkinson’s disease is unknown, although research points to a combination of genetic and environmental factors. Genetic targets allow scientists to study important mechanisms underlying disease onset and progression for everyone, not just those with genetic mutations implicated in PD.
Genetic research is critical to increasing understanding of PD, and developing breakthrough treatments for the disease. Specific studies focused on genetic targets like alpha-synuclein, a protein whose clumping is the pathological hallmark of PD, and LRRK2, the most common genetic contributor discovered to date, could speed progress toward treatments for everyone with PD, not just those with genetic mutations. Continue reading “Genetics and Parkinson’s: Efforts to Study the Role of Genetics in PD” »
Now that you’ve created a profile on Fox Trial Finder, help us promote Fox Trial Finder in your community through our new Fox Trial Finder ambassadors program.
Please join us for the first Quarterly Fox Trial Finder Ambassador Call on March 20, 2012 at 12 p.m. USET to learn more about the ambassador program and how to get started. Prior to the call, we will mail you a Fox Trial Finder Ambassador “Tool Kit,” which will equip you with all the materials and talking points you need to help educate others in your community about the importance of clinical trial participation and Fox Trial Finder. Continue reading “Become a Fox Trial Finder Ambassador!” »
In the years following his diagnosis of young-onset Parkinson’s disease (PD) in 1997, Steav Bates-Congdon, 61, an organist and musical director at a 12,000-member church in Charlotte, North Carolina, asked his neurologist about clinical trials; unfortunately though, and he didn’t have success connecting to trials in his area. That is, until the launch of Fox Trial Finder.
