New treatment may help reduce motor symptoms

• Prasinezumab, a monoclonal antibody designed to target protein clumps in the brains of people with rapidly progressing Parkinson’s disease, showed promise in reducing motor symptoms.
• It’s the first experimental monoclonal antibody with such targeting, and a trial of 316 people suggests that it could be a path forward in fighting the disease.
• However, experts say there are a number of questions that still need to be addressed through more rigorous clinical trials.

An experimental monoclonal antibody shows promise in reducing the motor skills deterioration of people with rapidly progressing Parkinson’s disease, a new study has revealed. The findings suggest that prasinezumab, which is designed to bind aggregated alpha-synuclein — a significant aspect of Parkinson’s that is thought to drive the progression of the disease — could have some positive effects on motor symptoms.

Parkinson’s is characterized by significant neurological decline that can manifest in tremors, motor control problems, and dementia. There is no known cause, but it is associated with a lack of dopamine in the brain. It is the second most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer’s in the U.S., and it is believed that at least 500,000 adults in the U.S. have it.

The PASEDENA study, published in Nature Medicine, divided 316 people into three groups: 106 received 4,500 mg of prasinezumab, 105 received 1,500 mg, and 105 received a placebo.

The researchers had hypothesized that people with rapidly progressing Parkinson’s would respond the most to prasinezumab because the drug would provide a greater “signal-to-noise ratio,” meaning the degree of change over time would be easier to identify.

They split the groups who took prasinezumab into several subpopulations with the following criteria:

After following all participants in the trial for 52 weeks, those who were taking prasinezumab had a greater reduction of motor skills deterioration than those taking the placebo.

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