The goal of the collaboration is to develop a therapeutic approach for Parkinson’s disease that combines the strengths of Lilly’s biologic, a modified form of glial cell derived neurotrophic factor (GDNF), with Medtronic’s implantable drug infusion system technology.
Lilly has applied its expertise in biotechnology and designed its GDNF variant with the intent to achieve increased distribution in targeted brain regions.
Medtronic has developed a drug pump and specially designed catheter to enable precise delivery of the GDNF variant into a targeted area of the brain consistently over time.
Lilly Neurodegeneration team chief scientific officer Michael Hutton said they have biosynthetically engineered the GDNF variant to overcome technical hurdles of previous research in this area and are hopeful that early testing of their biologic with Medtronic’s device will provide the necessary data to safely advance into human studies.