Parkinson's Patch Approved by FDA

American's suffering from early-stage Parkinson's disease have a new medicine to help them: a transdermal patch known as Neupro.

The effectiveness of Neupro was demonstrated in one fixed-dose response study and two flexible-dose studies. The parallel group studies were randomized, double-blinded, and placebo-controlled, and involved 1,154 patients with early Parkinson's disease who were not taking other Parkinson's medications.

The most common side effects for Neupro included skin reactions at the patch site, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, drowsiness and insomnia, most of which are typical of this class of drugs. Other potential safety concerns include sudden onset of sleep while engaged in routine activities such as driving or operating machinery (sleep attacks), hallucinations, and decreased blood pressure on standing up (postural hypotension).

Levodopa, the standard therapy for Parkinson's disease, must be taken multiple times per day in order to maintain a sufficient level of the drug in the blood (bioavailability) for the body to use. Even then, the bioavailability -- and effectiveness -- of the drug decreases as time passes between doses.

Neupro -- and most transdermal patches -- delivers the active ingredient at a constant rate over 24 hours, allowing the bioavailability and effectiveness of the drug to remain constant.

Beneficial (for some), but as Michael J. Fox asked at the BIO conference:

Do we really need another dopamine agonist?

He wants a cure. Is that too much to ask?

Neupro Patch for Treatment of Early Parkinson's Disease [Michael J. Fox Foundation]