Good news! However, this is also a scandal of a promising drug being unnecessarily delayed!
"About a decade ago, ... researcher ... came up with a novel idea for treating Parkinson’s disease.
The proposed treatment—an amino acid that occurs naturally in the body ... it not just slowed but reversed the course of the disease in mice; it showed promise in a small clinical trial; it appears safe for human use; it could be taken orally; and it was cheap to manufacture.
But the potential remedy had a fateful flaw: as a naturally occurring substance, it couldn’t be patented. With little profit to be made, no pharmaceutical or biotech company would invest the millions needed to support a clinical trial. And so the potential treatment languished on a laboratory shelf. ...
just recently attracting support from SPARK NS, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to efficiently advancing promising academic discoveries in neuroscience from the lab to the clinic. With funding and other support including education, mentorship from industry expert advisors, and networking opportunities as part of a two-year translational research program from SPARK NS, ... hopes to launch at least a modest clinical trial of the amino acid—D-serine—and give this potential Parkinson’s therapy a second chance. ...
just recently attracting support from SPARK NS, an independent nonprofit organization dedicated to efficiently advancing promising academic discoveries in neuroscience from the lab to the clinic. With funding and other support including education, mentorship from industry expert advisors, and networking opportunities as part of a two-year translational research program from SPARK NS, ... hopes to launch at least a modest clinical trial of the amino acid—D-serine—and give this potential Parkinson’s therapy a second chance. ...
on a small trial of D-serine as a treatment for apathy and depression in 10 patients with Parkinson’s. Their psychiatric symptoms improved, but surprisingly, so did their motor symptoms. ..."
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