Prodrug infusion beats oral Parkinson’s disease therapy for motor symptoms

Encouraging, but more data needed

Indu Subramanian, MD, of the department of neurology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and director of the Parkinson’s Disease Research, Education, and Clinical Center at the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs Hospital, commented that the field has been waiting to see data on fosL/fosC.

“It seems like it’s pretty reasonable in terms of what the goals were, which is to improve stability of Parkinson’s symptoms, to improve off time and give on time without troublesome dyskinesia,” she said. “So I think those [goals] have been met.”

Dr. Subramanian, who was not involved with the research, said she would have liked to have seen results concerning safety of this drug formulation, which the presentation lacked, “because historically, there have been issues with nodule formation and skin breakdown, things like that, due to the stability of the product in the subcutaneous form. … So, always to my understanding, there has been this search for things that are tolerated in the subcutaneous delivery.”

If this formulation proves safe and tolerable, Dr. Subramanian sees a potential place for it for some patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.

“Certainly a subcutaneous formulation will be better than something that requires … deep brain surgery or even a pump insertion like Duopa [carbidopa/levodopa enteral suspension, AbbVie] or something like that,” she said. “I think [it] would be beneficial over something with the gut because the gut historically has been a problem to rely on in advanced Parkinson’s patients due to slower transit times, and the gut itself is affected with Parkinson’s disease.”

Dr. Stodtmann and all coauthors are employees of AbbVie, which was the sponsor of the study and was responsible for all aspects of it. Dr. Subramanian has given talks for Acadia Pharmaceuticals and Acorda Therapeutics in the past.

A version of this article originally appeared on Medscape.com.