Herantis Pharma, a Finnish pharmaceutical company, has announced the first clinical trial of a new treatment for Parkinson’s.
The study, due to start next year, will use a state of the art delivery system to get a compound called cerebral dopamine neurotrophic factor (or CDNF for short) delivered directly into the brain.
The study is currently being discussed with regulatory bodies in Finland and Sweden and aims to start recruiting people with Parkinson’s in 2017.
CDNF is one of a family of ‘growth factors’ that the brain produces naturally to help cells to grow and survive.
Another important member of this family is GDNF (or glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) which is already being tested in a groundbreaking clinical trial supported by Parkinson’s UK.Research suggests that CDNF can protect dopamine-producing cells and encourage them to grow again.
Getting CDNF to where it’s needed in the brain requires an innovative delivery system. But one has already been developed and used successfully in the PUK GDNF trial.
The company involved in helping to develop this drug delivery system for the GDNF trial is called Renishaw and they are now partnering with Herantis to use similar technology in the CDNF trial.
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