No evidence seen to support GLP-1 receptor agonist exenatide as disease-modifying treatment for Parkinson disease<\/p>\n<\/h3>\n
By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter<\/b>
\n<\/b><\/p>\n
FRIDAY, Feb. 7, 2025 (HealthDay News) — The glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist exenatide does not yield improvement in measures of Parkinson disease severity, according to a study published online Feb. 4 in The Lancet<\/em>.<\/p>\n Nirosen Vijiaratnam, M.D., from the University College London Queen Square Institute of Neurology, and colleagues conducted a phase 3, multicenter trial at six research hospitals in the United Kingdom involving patients aged 25 to 80 years with a diagnosis of Parkinson disease who were randomly assigned to receive extended-release exenatide 2 mg by subcutaneous pen injection once per week over 96 weeks or visually identical placebo (97 patients in each group).<\/p>\n The analyses included 92 patients in the exenatide group and 96 in the placebo group with at least one follow-up visit. The researchers found that the Movement Disorder Society-sponsored revision of the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale part III score, off dopaminergic medication at 96 weeks, increased (worsened) by a mean of 5.7 and 4.5 points in the exenatide and placebo groups, respectively (adjusted coefficient for the effect of exenatide, 0.92; 95 percent confidence interval, \u22121.56 to 3.39; P = 0.47). Nine and 11 participants in the exenatide and placebo groups, respectively, had at least one serious adverse event.<\/p>\n “The results of this trial are discordant with previous laboratory and epidemiology data and previous trial results,” the authors write. “We aim to do further post-hoc analyses to try and explain the reasons for this inconsistency.”<\/p>\n Several authors disclosed ties to biopharmaceutical companies. AstraZeneca provided exenatide for the study.<\/p>\n