Exenatide Once Weekly Over 2 Years as a Potential Disease Modifying Treatment for Parkinson's Disease

What this study is testing ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04232969 ↗

Description as written by the study sponsor.

This study is a clinical trial in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), of a drug called exenatide, which is already licensed for the treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes. There have been several groups that have confirmed that exenatide has beneficial effects of nerve cells when tested in the laboratory, which raises the possibility that exenatide may slow down or stop the degeneration of PD. In an open label trial in patients with PD who self administered the drug for a period of 48 weeks, the investigators have previously shown that the drug is well tolerated and shows encouraging effects on the movement and non-movement aspects of the disease. A double blind placebo controlled trial involving 60 participants was then conducted which indicated that exenatide may be a "neuroprotective" drug, i.e. one that stops the nerve cells dying in PD. The next step is therefore to confirm this "neuroprotective" effect and to see whether this effect can be reproduced in a multi-centre setting including a larger number of participants. An important objective is to explore whether any positive effects remain static or increase when the treatment is continued over a 96 week period. In order to explore this, a randomised, double blind, parallel group, placebo controlled, Phase 3 trial of Exenatide is being undertaken (Exenatide-PD3).

Treatments tested

• Exenatide extended release 2mg (Bydureon) Drug

  Subcutaneous Injection