Tag: AAV

Bayer doubles down on Parkinson’s?

~ Simon ~ 7 Comments

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News today of two biotech companies merging did not cause much of a ripple in the media, but the wider implications of the move are rather significant for Parkinson’s.

Today it was announced that Brain Neurotherapy Bio (BNB) is going to merge with Asklepios Biopharmaceutical (aka AskBio). BNB are currently clinically testing a GDNF gene therapy approach for Parkinson’s, and AskBio is a subsidary of the large Pharmaceutical company Bayer.

This is the same ‘Bayer’ that last year bought BlueRock Therapeutics – a biotech company focused on cell transplantation for Parkinson’s (Click here to read a previous SoPD post about that).

In today’s post, we will discuss what BNB are doing and why this merger is particularly interesting.

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Source: BBRF

One of the themes this year on the SoPD website has been an effort to highlight (and encourage) more focus on alternative restorative therapies for Parkinson’s. There are a lot of different approaches exploring very different methods of slowing the progression of Parkinson’s, but most of the current clinical efforts investigating restorative therapies are oriented solely around cell transplantation.

What we really need are some novel strategies for replacing what is lost and encouraging re-growth from cells that remain.

Most of the SoPD posts exploring this idea during 2020 have been looking at very blue sky ideas (Click here, here, here and here to read some examples). But we have also been keeping an eye on biotech efforts in this domain, and today we received some interesting news which involved the merger of two biotech companies.

The merger occurred between Asklepios Biopharmaceutical (aka AskBio) and Brain Neurotherapy Bio.

ASKBio is a “gene therapy company dedicated to improving the lives of patients with rare diseases and other genetic disorders“. Gene therapy involves using DNA to treat medical conditions, rather than drugs. The DNA is usually delivered to the tissue requiring correction by carefully engineered viruses.

Brain Neurotherapy Bio is also a gene therapy biotech company that is currently clinically testing a GDNF gene therapy approach for Parkinson’s.

What is GDNF?

Continue reading “Bayer doubles down on Parkinson’s?” →

Something new for neurturin

~ Simon ~ 8 Comments

 

In 2013, a biotech company called Ceregene reported disappointing results from their experimental gene therapy clinical trial for Parkinson’s. The data from the study suggested that the therapy had no clinical effect on the progression of Parkinson’s (Click here to read the press release).

Today, however, researchers associated with that biotech company have published a new report that suggests that the treatment had beneficial effects in the brain, but not enough of it was delivered.

The treatment was a gene therapy approach (which involves using DNA rather than drugs to treat medical conditions), and it involved a protein called neurturin.

In today’s post, we will discuss what neurturin is, we will review what this new study found, and consider what the implications could be for future gene therapy trials in Parkinson’s.

 

Source: Medium

Reanalysing clinical trial data (called post-hoc analysis) provides a very useful way of generating new hypotheses even if the initial study did not reach its primary endpoint (that is to say the study did not demonstrate a successful outcome. Post-hoc analysis must be handled carefully, as the findings of such investigations can be viewed as selective ‘cherry picking’ of interesting outcomes. They will need to be tested to determine if they are real effects.

Even more important than post-hoc analysis, however, is following up participants who took part in a trial to see if there were any long-term benefits from the treatment. I often wonder how much important data is lost after a clinical trial simply becomes there is no long term follow up and study investigators lose track of participants as they drift away.

Precious nuggets of information can be gained from long-term analysis. And this week we saw a really interesting example of this.

Here is the research report:

Title: Long-term post-mortem studies following neurturin gene therapy in patients with advanced Parkinson’s disease.
Authors: Chu Y, Bartus RT, Manfredsson FP, Olanow CW, Kordower JH.
Journal: Brain. 2020 Mar 1;143(3):960-975.
PMID: 32203581                    (This report is OPEN ACCESS if you wouldl like to read it)

In this study, the researchers were looking at postmortem brain sections from 2 participants who took part in a clinical trial investigating a treatment called neurturin.

What is neurturin?

Continue reading “Something new for neurturin” →

Dream, struggle, create, Prevail

~ Simon ~ 8 Comments

 

The recent documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by the biotech firm Prevail Therapeutics provides interesting insight into the bold plans of this company which was only founded in 2017.

Even more recent news that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has accepted the company’s Investigational New Drug (IND) application for its lead experimental treatment – PR001 – suggests that this company is not wasting any time. 

PR001 is a gene therapy approach targeting GBA-associated Parkinson’s.

In today’s post, we will discuss what GBA-associated Parkinson’s is, how Prevail plans to treat this condition, and discuss what we know about PR001.

 

Caterina Fake. Source: TwiT

The title of this post comes is from a quote by Caterina Fake (co-founder of Flickr and Hunch (now part of Ebay)), but it seemed appropriate.

This post is all about dreaming big (curing Parkinson’s), the struggle to get the research right, and to create a biotech company: Prevail Therapeutics.

What is Prevail Therapeutics?

Prevail is a gene therapy biotech firm that was founded in 2017.

The company was founded by Dr Asa Abeliovich:

Dr Asa Abeliovich. Source: Prevail

It was set up in a collaborative effort with The Silverstein Foundation for Parkinson’s with GBA (Click here to read a previous SoPD post about this organisation) and OrbiMed (a healthcare-dedicated investment firm).

What does Prevail Therapeutics do?

Continue reading “Dream, struggle, create, Prevail” →

The other GDNF clinical trial

~ Simon ~ 22 Comments

 

Glial cell-line derived neurotrophic factor (or GDNF) has been a topic of heated discussion in the Parkinson’s community for a long time. Most recently due to the announcement of the results of the Phase II Bristol GDNF clinical trial results, which did not meet the primary end points of the study (Click here to read more about that).

This week at the annual American Association of Neurological Surgeons conference in San Diego, the results of another GDNF clinical trial were presented.

This new study was a Phase I study assessing the safety and tolerability of a gene therapy approach for GDNF in people with Parkinson’s.

In today’s post, we will discuss what gene therapy is, what the new trial results indicate, and what the researchers may be planning to do next for this new clinical trial programme.

 

Source: AANS

Every year members of the American Association of Neurological Surgeons gather together in one spot and compare data/research/clinical notes.

This year the 87th AANS Annual Scientific Meeting was held in spectacular San Diego.

San Diego. Source: AFP

From Saturday 13th April through till Wednesday 17th, clinicians and researchers attended lectures and discussed new data on every aspect of neurological surgery. While I did not (nor planned to) attend the meeting, I was very interested to learn more about one particular presentation.

It involved the announcement of the results of a clinical trial which was focused on a gene therapy approach for Parkinson’s.

The treatment involved GDNF (Click here to read the abstract).

What is GDNF?

Continue reading “The other GDNF clinical trial” →

The Bristol GDNF results

~ Simon ~ 56 Comments

 

Today – 27th February, 2019 – the long-awaited results of the Phase II GDNF clinical trial were published.

GDNF (or glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor) is a protein that our bodies naturally produce to nurture and support cells. Extensive preclinical research suggested that this protein was particularly supportive of dopamine neurons – a group of cells in the brain that are affected by Parkinson’s.

The results of the Phase II clinical trial suggest that the treatment was having an effect in the brain (based on imaging data), but the clinic-based methods of assessment indicated no significant effect between the treatment and placebo groups.

In today’s post we will look at what GDNF is, review the previous research on the protein, discuss the results of the latest study, and look at what happens next.

And be warned this is going to be a long post!

 

Boulder, Colorado. Source: Rps

It all began way back in 1991.

George H. W. Bush was half way into his presidency, a rock band called Nirvana released their second album (‘Nevermind’), Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls rolled over the LA Lakers to win the NBA championship, and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s ‘Terminator 2’ was the top grossing movie of the year.

Source: Stmed

But in the city of Boulder (Colorado), a discovery was being made that would change Parkinson’s research forever.

In 1991, Dr Leu-Fen Lin and Dr Frank Collins – both research scientists at a small biotech company called Synergen, isolated a protein that they called glial cell-derived neurotrophic factor, or GDNF.

And in 1993, they shared their discovery with the world in this publication:

Title: GDNF: a glial cell line-derived neurotrophic factor for midbrain dopaminergic neurons.
Authors: Lin LF, Doherty DH, Lile JD, Bektesh S, Collins F.
Journal: Science, 1993 May 21;260(5111):1130-2.
PMID: 8493557

For the uninitiated among you, when future historians write the full history of Parkinson’s, there will be no greater saga than GDNF.

In fact, in the full history of medicine, there are few experimental treatments that people get more excited, divided, impassioned and evangelical than GDNF.

This ‘wonder drug’ has been on a rollercoaster ride of a journey.

What exactly is GDNF?

Continue reading “The Bristol GDNF results” →

The good, the GAD, and the not-so ugly

~ Simon ~ 2 Comments

 

This post is a game of two halves.

The first half will explain the concept of a surgical procedure for Parkinson’s called ‘subthalamic deep brain stimulation‘, in which doctors permenantly implant electrodes into the brain to stimulate a region – the subthalamic nucleus. By stimulating this region with electrical impulses, doctors can provide a better quality of life (in most cases) to people with severe features of Parkinson’s.

In the second half of this post, we will look at an approach to doing the same thing,… but without the electrodes.

Rather, researchers are using gene therapy.

In today’s post, we will discuss what deep brain stimulation is, what gene therapy is, and how the gene therapy approach is having a different kind of impact on the brain to that of deep brain stimulation.

 

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Source: Youtube

Welcome to the first half of today’s post.

It begins with you asking the question:

What is deep brain stimulation?

Deep brain stimulation (or DBS) is a treatment method that involves embedding electrodes into the brain to help modulate the brain activity involved in movement.

It is a prodcedure that is usually offered to people with Parkinson’s who have excessive tremor or debilitating dyskinesias.

First introduced in 1987, deep brain stimulation consists of three components: the pulse generator, an extension wire, and the leads (which the electrodes are attached to). All of these components are implanted inside the body. The system is turned on, programmed and turned off remotely.

Shahlaie_DBS_Illustration-full

Source: Ucdmc

Continue reading “The good, the GAD, and the not-so ugly” →

Voyager Therapeutics update

~ Simon ~ 8 Comments

This week a biotech company called Voyager Therapeutics provided an update regarding a gene therapy approach for people with severe Parkinson’s.

Gene therapy is an experimental therapeutic approach that involves inserting new DNA into cells using a virus. The introduced DNA can help a cell to produce proteins that it usually wouldn’t  produce, and this can help to alleviate the motor features of Parkinson’s.

In today’s post we will discuss what gene therapy is, what Voyager Therapeutics is trying to do, and outline what their update reported.

There are 4 phases to the clinical trial process of testing new treatment for use in humans:

  • Phase I determines if a treatment is safe in humans (this is conducted in an ‘open label’ manner)
  • Phase II ‘double blindly’ assesses in a small cohort of subjects if the treatment is effective
  • Phase III involves randomly and blindly testing the treatment in a very large cohort of patients
  • Phase IV (often called Post Marketing Surveillance Trials) are studies conducted after the treatment has been approved for clinical use

(‘Open label’ refers to both the investigator and the participants in a study knowing what treatment is being administered; while ‘double blind’ testing refers to studies in which the participants and the investigators do not know whether the participant is receiving the active treatment or an inert control treatment until the end of the study).

Based on the successful completion of their Phase I clinical trials for their gene therapy treatment called VY-AADC (Click here to read more about this), Boston-based biotech firm Voyager Therapeutics approached the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) with the goal of shifting their clinical trial programme into Phase II testing.

What is gene therapy?

Continue reading “Voyager Therapeutics update” →

Happy birthday: Silverstein Foundation

~ Simon ~ 7 Comments

Over the last 12 months, the Silverstein Foundation has quickly established itself as a major focused force in the fight against Parkinson’s.

And when I say ‘focused’, I mean ‘focused’ –  the foundation is “actively pursues and invests in cutting edge research with the goal of discovering new therapies for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease in glucocerebrosidase (GBA) mutation carriers”.

But the output of this effort may well have major benefits for the entire Parkinson’s community.

In today’s post, we will discuss what GBA is, how it functions inside cells, its association with Parkinson’s, and what all of this GBA focused research being funded by the Silverstein Foundation could mean for the Parkinson’s community.

Jonathan Silverstein. Source: Forbes

This is Jonathan Silverstein.

He’s a dude.

He is also a General Partner and a Co-Head of Global Private Equity at OrbiMed – the world’s largest fully dedicated healthcare fund manager. During his time at OrbiMed, the company has invested in healthcare companies that have been involved with over 60 FDA approved products.

In February 2017, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at just 49 years of age.

Rather than simply accepting this diagnosis, however, Mr Silverstein decided to apply the skills that he has built over a long and successful career in funding biotech technology, and in March 2017, he and his wife, Natalie, set up the Silverstein Foundation.

They raised $6 million from donors and then provided another $10 million of their own money to fund the endeavour, which has funded a dozen research projects and started a new company called Prevail Therapeutics (we’ll come back to this shortly).

Source: Businesswire

The foundation has just one mission: “to actively pursue and invest in cutting edge research with the goal of discovering new therapies for the treatment of Parkinson’s Disease in GBA mutation carriers”

And it seeks to address this by achieving three goals:

  1. to find a way to halt the progression of Parkinson’s with GBA.
  2. to identify regenerative approaches to replace the damaged/lost cells
  3. to find preventative measures

What is ‘GBA’?

Continue reading “Happy birthday: Silverstein Foundation” →

Non-invasive gene therapy: “You never monkey with the truth”

~ Simon ~ 5 Comments

Gene therapy involves treating medical conditions at the level of DNA – that is, altering or enhancing the genetic code inside cells to provide therapeutic benefits rather than simply administering drugs. Usually this approach utilises specially engineered viruses to deliver the new DNA to particular cells in the body.

For Parkinson’s, gene therapy techniques have all involved direct injections of these engineered viruses into the brain – a procedure that requires brain surgery. This year, however, we have seen the EXTREMELY rapid development of a non-invasive approach to gene therapy for neurological condition, which could ultimately see viruses being injected in the arm and then travelling up to the brain where they will infect just the desired population of cells.

Last week, however, this approach hit a rather significant obstacle.

In today’s post, we will have a look at this gene therapy technology and review the new research that may slow down efforts to use this approach to help to cure Parkinson’s.

Gene therapy. Source: rdmag

When you get sick, the usual solution is to visit your doctor.

They will prescribe a medication for you to take, and then all things going well (fingers crossed/knock on wood) you will start to feel better. It is a rather simple and straight forward process, and it has largely worked well for most of us for quite some time.

As the overall population has started to live longer, however, we have begun to see more and more chronic conditions which require long-term treatment regimes. The “long-term” aspect of this means that some people are regularly taking medication as part of their daily lives. In many cases, these medications are taken multiple times per day.

A good example of this is Levodopa (also known as Sinemet or Madopar) which is the most common treatment for the chronic condition of Parkinson’s disease.

When you swallow your Levodopa pill, it is broken down in the gut, absorbed through the wall of the intestines, transported to the brain via our blood system, where it is converted into the chemical dopamine – the chemical that is lost in Parkinson’s disease. This conversion of Levodopa increases the levels of dopamine in your brain, which helps to alleviate the motor issues associated with Parkinson’s disease.

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Levodopa. Source: Drugs

This pill form of treating a disease is only a temporary solution though. People with Parkinson’s – like other chronic conditions – need to take multiple tablets of Levodopa every day to keep their motor features under control. And long term this approach can result in other complications, such as Levodopa-induced dyskinesias in the case of Parkinson’s.

Yeah, but is there a better approach?

Continue reading “Non-invasive gene therapy: “You never monkey with the truth”” →

AAV-PHP.B: The future is apparently now

~ Simon ~ 4 Comments

In addition to looking at current Parkinson’s disease research on this website, I like to look at where technological advances are taking us with regards to future therapies.

In July of this year, I wrote about a new class of engineered viruses that could potentially allow us to treat conditions like Parkinson’s disease using a non-invasive, gene therapy approach (Click here to read that post). At the time I considered this technology way off at some point in the distant future. Blue sky research. “Let’s wait and see” – sort of thing.

So imagine my surprise when an Italian research group last weekend published a new research report in which they used this futurist technology to correct a mouse model of Parkinson’s disease. Suddenly the distant future is feeling not so ‘distant’.

In today’s post we will review and discuss the results, and look at what happens next.

Technological progress – looking inside the brain. Source: Digitial Trends

I have said several times in the past that the pace of Parkinson’s disease research at the moment is overwhelming.

So much is happening so quickly that it is quite simply difficult to keep up. Not just here on the blog, but also with regards to the ever increasing number of research articles in the “need to read” pile on my desk. It’s mad. It’s crazy. Just as I manage to digest something new from one area of research, two or three other publications pop up in different areas.

But it is the shear speed with which things are moving now in the field of Parkinson’s research that is really mind boggling!

Source: Pinterest

Take for example the case of Squalamine.

In February of this year, researchers published an article outlining how a drug derived from the spiny dogfish could completely suppress the toxic effect of the Parkinson’s associated protein Alpha Synuclein (Click here to read that post).

The humble dogfish. Source: Discovery

And then in May (JUST 3 MONTHS LATER!!!), a biotech company called Enterin Inc. announced that they had just enrolled their first patient in the RASMET study: a Phase 1/2a randomised, controlled, multi-center clinical study evaluating a synthetic version of squalamine (called MSI-1436) in people with Parkinson’s disease. The study will enrol 50 patients over a 9-to-12-month period (Click here for the press release).

Source: Onemednews

Wow! That is fast.

Yeah, I thought so too, but then this last weekend a group in Italy published new research that completely changed my ideas on the meaning of the word ‘fast’. Regular readers will recall that in July I discussed amazing new technology that may one day allow us to inject a virus into a person’s arm and then that virus will make it’s way up to the brain and only infect the cells that we want to have a treatment delivered to. This represents non-invasive (as no surgery is required), gene therapy (correcting a medical condition with the delivery of DNA rather than medication). This new study used the same virus we discussed in July.

Continue reading “AAV-PHP.B: The future is apparently now” →