Teva welcomes results of Azilect trials

The Teva pharmaceutical company has welcomed the results of phase III trials of its Azilect drug, which is designed to slow the progress of Parkinson’s disease.

According to the firm, its drug met all of the primary assessment goals of the recent trials and experts are now confident of having it designated as the first treatment recognised as being capable of modifying the disease.

Safety and tolerability were also demonstrated through the trial, which involved hundreds of people from around the world and is believed to have been among the largest of its kind to focus on treatment of Parkinson’s.

“This achievement demonstrates the strength of Teva’s innovative research and development capabilities and highlights our continued commitment to the development of treatments for the more challenging areas of neurological diseases,” said Shlomo Yanai, president and chief executive of Teva.

Last week, Teva received “tentative approval” from the American Food and Drug Administration to market a generic hypertension drug developed by Novartis.