FDA human trials of Parkinson's drug from Inhibikase Therapeutics

Inhibikase Therapeutics has received FDA approval to begin two proof-of-principle trials to use its kinase inhibitor strategy as a possible treatment for Parkinson's disease.

In the animal testing, Inhibikase found the abelson tyrosine kinase inhibitors to be much more potent than the inhibitor imatinib, commonly known as Gleevec. These drugs can block the part in the brain linked to the development of Parkinson’s, and Inhibikase claimed its drug was able to block this point in animal testing.

Inhibikase's clinical trials will test the inhibitors Tasigna and Sprycel on whether they can treat Parkinson's in human patients. The trials will include patients with both Stage 2 and 3 Parkinson’s over a period of six months. The goal of the trials is to evaluate if these inhibiting drugs can stop or ever reverse Parkinson’s in these patients.

"Recently published work suggested Tasigna may have a clinical benefit, but without proper controls, it is unclear if the benefits observed are a true measure of clinical effect," said Inhibikase CEO Milton Werner, MD. "Since our novel, orally delivered Abelson kinase inhibitors are as much a 50-times more penetrant into the brain than Tasigna®, as we advance these novel drugs through the regulatory process, we want to simultaneously evaluate inhibitors in this drug class for clinical risk/benefit to better understand which patients with Parkinson's Disease are more likely to benefit from this abelson kinase inhibitor therapy. These studies will be undertaken at a single site in the U.S. and should begin patient evaluation for enrollment within a few months."