Scramble for Parkinson’s patients to save medical trials from the scrapheap
MILLIONS of pounds of research into life-changing treatments for Parkinson’s is at risk of being abandoned in a major blow to patients.
The search for a cure or symptom-easing drugs could be set back by years or never materialise if the trials are forced to close, experts warn.
Parkinson’s UK says five active studies into the disease, which affects 145,000 people in the UK, are critically short of participants and face being shut down.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, these studies had to close their sites and pause the research to keep people safe and redeploy staff to the Covid frontline.
They have since reopened and resumed recruiting but are running out of time to find enough volunteers to ensure they can continue. Parkinson’s UK and other funders have already invested millions of pounds into the trials, which must find thousands of people by autumn.
The charity warned that this money ‘will be wasted’ if the trials have to close early. It said: ‘Without these trials, important new treatments could be delayed by years, or risk never being made available at all.’
Parkinson’s UK spends around £10million on research each year in the hope of finding drugs that can ease symptoms or slow progression of the disease.
Trials play a vital role in demonstrating new treatments are both safe and effective.
The data collected is required for new treatments to be licensed and made available to people with Parkinson’s.
Each of the at-risk trials is looking for people who meet specific criteria, such as those who experience anxiety, falls, hallucinations or low mood. Non-Parkinson’s patients are also being asked to volunteer for one of them.
A trial of a sticky medication patch for falls has three months left to find 300 participants and a trial of a wrist-worn device which could manage drooling needs to recruit 3,000 in four months.
Another is examining whether an existing drug can help with Parkinson’s hallucinations and a fourth is seeking to better understand anxiety in people with and without the disease.
The fifth is testing a treatment of low mood in Parkinson’s and exploring whether it can slow the progression of the condition.
Professor David Dexter, associate director of research at Parkinson’s UK, said: ‘There are time pressures on trials as there is only a finite level of funding, with staff costs being the most expensive.
‘There are specific recruitment milestones that studies have to reach or the money and support can be stopped.’
He added: ‘For many decades we have been pushing hard to create revolutionary new ways of tackling
‘New therapeutics are just out of grasp’
Parkinson’s, investing millions of pounds to deliver life- changing treatments with the aim of ultimately finding a cure.
‘Yet, although these new therapeutics are almost in reach, they are sadly just out of our grasp...
‘Without [more volunteers], these trials risk being closed down, leaving us no closer to delivering new treatments for the 145,000 people living with Parkinson’s in the UK.’
He said: ‘A number of trials were understandably paused during the pandemic to help keep people safe and redeploy staff to the front line.
‘However, although they are now back up and running, the struggle to recruit is putting millions of pounds invested by Parkinson’s UK and other funders at risk and with it, the hope of helping thousands of patients to live their best lives as we keep searching for a cure.’
Details on how to volunteer can be found on the charity’s website.