As part of our updated research strategy, Cure Parkinson’s is committed to championing the development of combination therapies for Parkinson’s. To raise awareness of this in the Parkinson’s research community, members of our research team wrote an article which has now been published in the Journal of Parkinson’s Disease.
What are combination therapies?
Combination therapies involve two or more active treatments to achieve a desired effect. For example, the drug “co-careldopa” – one of the most common symptomatic Parkinson’s medications – is a combination of levodopa and carbidopa. Carbidopa helps to ensure more levodopa can reach the brain, where it is then converted to dopamine. Since combination therapies are already being used to treat Parkinson’s symptoms, it feels logical that they could also be used to slow progression.
What is the paper about?
In this piece, we argue that a new strategy is needed for identifying effective disease-modifying therapies – one that involves evaluating drugs in combination. Most drugs that have been tested in clinical trials for Parkinson’s are monotherapies: single treatments that target one pathway. We know, however, that the biology driving Parkinson’s is much more complex, involving a number of cellular pathways such as energy production and the waste disposal system. Furthermore, the impact of each of these pathways can vary between people with Parkinson’s and can be influenced by factors like genetics.
While investigating monotherapies remains important, finding a disease-modifying therapy may ultimately require a combination of treatments, each targeting different aspects of Parkinson’s progression. This opens the door not only to investigating new therapies but also re-examining drugs that may have failed in previous clinical trials. Cure Parkinson’s will continue to champion this area of research and we look forward to sharing future developments, including the outcome of our £2 million funding call for combination therapies.
The complexity of Parkinson’s and the high variability between patients means that is it unlikely that a single treatment will be right for everyone. By championing research into combination therapies, we aim to create new opportunities to address the disease biology more effectively. This is a strategy that has transformed outcomes in other disease areas like oncology and infectious disease, and we believe it holds similar promise for Parkinson’s.
Dr Paloma Fernandez, Market Acess and Industry Engagement Lead, Cure Parkinson’s
