Exenatide Once Weekly Over 2 Years as a Potential Disease Modifying Treatment for Parkinson's Disease
Status:
Recruiting
Trial end date:
2024-04-30
Target enrollment:
Participant gender:
Summary
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).