Monthly Research Review – February 2018

At the end of each month, the Science of Parkinson’s writes a post which provides an overview of some of the major pieces of Parkinson’s-related research that were made available.

In this post we review some of the research from February 2018.

The post is divided into four parts based on the type of research (Basic biology, disease mechanism, clinical research, and other news). 


Seeing shadows: Punxsutawney Phil. Source: Wordonfire

In major world event news: On the 2nd February of 2018, Punxsutawney Phil – the groundhog who resides at Gobbler’s Knob of Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania – scurried out of his little hole and saw his shadow. This omen indicates that we have a long winter. Given how hard and bitter this particular winter has been, Americans naturally rejoiced.

On the 6th February, SpaceX successfully launched a Tesla sports car into space – see the video below for the highlights (and if you don’t have time to watch it all, at the very least jump forward to 3:45 and watch the two boosters land simultaneously – surely they didn’t plan for it to be that perfect!)

In other news, on the 1st February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that it was dramatically downsizing its epidemic prevention activities in 39 out of 49 countries, due to concerns about funding.

And of course we had the 2018 Winter Olympics – where New Zealand came in 27th on the medals board:

Source: Madison365

In the world of Parkinson’s research, a great deal of new research and news was reported.

In February 2018, there were 698 research articles added to the Pubmed website with the tag word “Parkinson’s” attached (1577 for all of 2018 so far). In addition, there was a wave to news reports regarding various other bits of Parkinson’s research activity (clinical trials, etc).

The top 5 pieces of PD news

Continue reading “Monthly Research Review – February 2018”

The Acorda’s Tozadenant Phase III clinical trials

The biotech company Acorda Therapeutics Inc. yesterday announced that it was halting new recruitment for the phase III program of its drug Tozadenant (an oral adenosine A2a receptor antagonist).

In addition, participants currently enrolled in the trial will now have their blood monitoring conducted on a weekly basis. 

The initial report looks really bad (tragically five people have died), but does this tragic news mean that the drug should be disregarded?

In todays post, we will look at what adenosine A2a receptor antagonists are, how they may help with Parkinson’s, and discuss what has happened with this particular trial.


Dr Ron Cohen, CEO of Acorda. Source: EndpointNews

Founded in 1995, Acorda Therapeutics Ltd is a biotechnology company that is focused on developing therapies that restore function and improve the lives of people with neurological disorders, particularly Parkinson’s disease.

Earlier this year, they had positive results in their phase III clinical trial of Inbrija (formerly known as CVT-301 – Click here to read a previous post about this). They have subsequently filed a New Drug Application with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make this inhalable form of L-dopa available in the clinic, but the application has been delayed due to manufacturing concerns from the FDA (Click here to read more about this). These issues should be solvable – the company and the FDA are working together on these matters – and the product will hopefully be available in the new year.

So what was the news yesterday?

Acorda Therapeutics has another experimental product going through the clinical trial process for Parkinson’s disease.

It’s called Tozadenant.

Source: Focusbio

Tozadenant is an oral adenosine A2a receptor antagonist (and yes, we’ll discuss what all that means in a moment).

Yesterday Acorda Therapeutics Inc announced that they have halted new recruitment for their phase III clinical program. In addition the company is increasing the frequency of blood cell count monitoring (from monthly to weekly) for participants already enrolled in the company’s Phase 3 program of Tozadenant for Parkinson’s disease.

The Company took this action due to reports of cases of agranulocytosis.

Continue reading “The Acorda’s Tozadenant Phase III clinical trials”