First patient enrolled in Parkinson’s treatment study

The first patient has been enrolled in the DEMET study to investigate novel compounds to treat Parkinson’s disease (PD). The trial is an open-label multi-centre study taking place across 15 US sites.

The study, held by CNS pharmaceutical company Enterin Inc, will enrol 30 patients over a six-month period. Patients will be administered with escalating daily doses of ENT-01, followed by a fixed dose for 25 days.

The company is progressing ENT-01 through clinical trials in an attempt to reverse the constipation and neurologic symptoms of PD.

The study will establish the safety, tolerability and efficacy of orally administered ENT-01, a synthetic derivative of squalamine, which is not absorbed into the bloodstream. The compound acts locally on the enteric nerve cells of the gut, stimulating gut motility and altering afferent neural signalling from gut to brain.

Synthetic squalamine was recently shown to prevent the build-up and reduce the toxicity of alpha-synuclein, implicated in the pathogenesis and progression of PD. The compound was shown to displace alpha-synuclein aggregates from the inner wall of nerve cells and to prevent the stiffness which develops in C. Elegans worms engineered to produce alpha-synuclein in its muscles.