Teva’s Agilect improves symptoms in Parkinson’s study

Patients with moderate-to-advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD) experiencing motor complications, who added once-daily Agilect (rasagiline tablets) to their treatment with optimized levodopa, with or without stable doses of other anti-PD medications, experienced a significant improvement in their PD symptoms and a significant reduction in ‘off’ time according to the PRESTO study.

The average reduction in ‘off’ time (when the effects of levodopa have worn off and PD symptoms return or are not adequately controlled) among patients using Agilect was 1.85 hours daily for the 1mg group and 1.41 hours daily in the 0.5mg group, while placebo provided a reduction of 0.91 hours daily.

Additionally, Agilect significantly improved motor function during ‘on’ time (time when medication effectively manages symptoms of PD) and activities of daily living during ‘off’ time based on the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS).

Agilect also showed significant improvement on Clinical Global Improvement (CGI) scale scores rated by the examiner. Quality of life, as measured by the PDQUALIF scale, showed a trend toward improvement in patients treated with Agilect 0.5mg/day, but not with Agilect 1mg/day.

“Rasagiline decreased ‘off’ time and increased the amount of ‘on’ time,” said Dr Matt Stern, professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania and co-principal investigator for the PRESTO study. “The efficacy and tolerability of rasagiline, as demonstrated in this trial, combined with its once-daily dosing, suggest it may be a promising new treatment for PD.”