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New Drug May Relieve Reemerging Parkinson's Symptoms

Antonio Bullon

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A psychiatrist with experience treating neuropsychiatric disorders, Dr. Antonio Bullon is the former medical director of the MetroWest Medical Center's geriatric and neuropsychiatry treatment unit in Natick, Massachusetts. As an attending psychiatrist at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dr. Antonio Bullon cares for older adults with Parkinson's disease and other neuropsychiatric illnesses.

According to a recent Phase 3 clinical trial reported at the International Congress of Parkinson's Disease and Movement Disorders (MDS) in June of 2017, an inhaled powder known as CVT-301 may reduce the impact of Parkinson's disease motor symptoms during periods of re-emergence, or “off” states. These moments of re-emergence occur when a patient's regular medication offers poor control of symptoms, which typically occurs when medications begin to wear off.

CVT-301 proved effective in rapidly addressing the re-emergence of symptoms. Researchers reported significantly higher scores on the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS) for patients who took the drug compared to those who took a placebo. The drug also met the secondary goal of transitioning the patient from an off state to an on state, which would last for more than an hour.
CVT-301, known also as inhaled levodopa, comes from the work of researchers at Acorda Therapeutics. The company hopes to file a new drug application with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and a marketing authorization application with the European Medicines Agency within the 2017 calendar year.