Servier and Oncodesign, a French biotech dedicated to precision medicine, announced the selection of a preclinical candidate resulting from their collaboration to find new treatments for Parkinson’s disease.
Initiated in March 2019, this Research and Development partnership is focused on the identification of LRRK2 kinase inhibitors and their potential to act as therapeutic agents against Parkinson’s disease.
With the selection of this first preclinical candidate, the collaboration now targets the first regulatory toxicology studies that will be undertaken by Servier.
“This collaboration with Oncodesign underlines the synergistic nature of our two companies’ experiences and approaches, which has enabled the rapid identification of a preclinical candidate and a number of follow-up compounds. The next step is the regulatory toxicology phase, which we will begin shortly, after which we anticipate our first Phase I clinical trial in 2022. Parkinson’s disease is an important part of our strategic focus, with a huge medical need and for which there are no disease progression-slowing treatments currently available (…).”
More than 6.3 million people worldwide are affected by Parkinson’s disease1.
Parkinson’s disease (PD) is the most widespread neurodegenerative disorder responsible for motor disorders, affecting 1% of people aged 65 years old and over2. Clinical symptoms are progressive: slowness of movement, tremor, stiffness. At present, there are no proven neuroprotective or neurorestorative therapies. Modifying the disease’s progression is thus the main objective of the research and development of new PD treatments today.