Roche's Parkinson's Drug Misses Key Target in Mid-Stage Trial

Investing.com -- Roche's experimental Parkinson's disease drug prasinezumab has failed to meet its primary goal in a mid-stage trial. The Swiss pharmaceutical giant announced on Thursday that the drug did not significantly delay the progression of motor symptoms in patients with early-stage Parkinson's disease. This marks the second setback this week for potential treatments for the neurodegenerative disease. Earlier this week, Belgian rival UCB announced that a similar Parkinson's drug candidate developed in collaboration with Novartis also failed to meet key objectives in a clinical trial.

Despite this setback, Roche stated that prasinezumab showed potential clinical efficacy. The drug also demonstrated positive trends on several other trial objectives and was well tolerated by patients. Roche plans to continue evaluating the data and work with health authorities to determine the next steps.

Roche's Chief Medical Officer Levi Garraway expressed confidence in the drug’s potential, stating, "We believe the consistent efficacy trends observed in the Phase IIb study of prasinezumab are worth exploring further." The latest study involving an expanded patient group of 586 participants reflected mixed results from a previous mid-stage trial by Roche conducted earlier this year.

Currently, there is no cure for Parkinson's disease, which affects approximately 1 million people in the U.S. and over 10 million worldwide. Many companies are developing treatments targeting the neuronal protein alpha-synuclein, which is associated with the disease.