We May be Closer to Treatments for Parkinson’s

Nearly 10 million people struggle with Parkinson’s disease at the moment.

While there is no cure for Parkinson’s disease just yet, treatments such as L-dopa, or Levodopa can help control the symptoms, including stiffness, weakness, and rigidity.  Unfortunately, even long-term exposure to L-dopa can cause issues, such as dyskinesia, which  can include rapid, involuntary, and uncontrollable movements.

However, there may be a solution for levodopa-induced dyskinesia in patients with Parkinson’s disease (LID-PD).  In fact, PharmaTher (CSE:PHRM) (OTC:PHRRF) just announced that the U.S. FDA just approved the Company’s Investigational New Drug application to proceed with a Phase 2 clinical trial to evaluate the safety, efficacy and pharmacokinetics of ketamine in the treatment of levodopa-induced dyskinesia in patients with Parkinson’s disease.

Parkinson’s disease is a debilitating disorder that affects over 1 million people in the U.S. and more than 7 million people worldwide. There is currently no cure for Parkinson’s disease, although some drug combinations are used to treat the disease symptoms. The global Parkinson’s disease market is expected to grow from USD $5 billion in 2019 to USD $7.5 billion by the end of 2025 [360iResearch 2020] and it is estimated that the potential market opportunity for LID-PD to be over USD $3 billion in the U.S. alone.