Boehringer Ingelheim presents new pramipexole data

Boehringer Ingelheim has presented new data showing that pramipexole monotherapy can reduce dyskinesias and delay the need for levodopa treatment in patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Results, presented at the XVII WFN World Congress of Parkinson?s Disease and Related Disorders, demonstrated further evidence of the benefits of pramipexole in early PD patients.

It was found that monotherapy with the non-ergot dopamine agonist pramipexole can significantly reduce the incidence of dyskinesias (involuntary jerking movements) at four years of follow-up when compared with levodopa.

For those with advancing PD, treated initially with pramipexole and needing additional levodopa therapy, the levodopa dose could be reduced by nearly 40 per cent.

Cheryl Walters, professor of neurology at Columbia University in New York, highlighted that Dyskinesias was a major complication of PD treatment with levodopa which has been associated with a longer duration of PD.

Commenting on the study results, she confirmed: “An optimal therapeutic approach could therefore be to initiate monotherapy early on with a dopamine agonist, such as pramipexole, and to maintain monotherapy as long as possible to avoid unwanted effects of levodopa.”

Also this week, Boehringer Ingelheim has announced key progress in the development of the Re-Volution trial programme of dabigatran etexilate, its direct thrombin inhibitor.