Roche And Prothena Will Advance Prasinezumab Into Late-Stage Clinical Development Study In Parkinson’s Disease

Prothena Corporation plc a late-stage clinical company with expertise in protein dysregulation and a diverse pipeline of investigational therapeutics for neurodegenerative and rare peripheral amyloid diseases, announced that based on positive signals of efficacy consistent with disease modification in the PASADENA study, Roche and Prothena plan to advance prasinezumab into a Phase 2b study in patients with early Parkinson’s disease. The study will be designed to further assess the efficacy of prasinezumab by expanding upon the patient population enrolled in PASADENA to include patients with early Parkinson’s disease on stable levodopa therapy. Prasinezumab is the first anti-alpha synuclein antibody to advance into late-stage development. Prothena will earn a $60 million clinical milestone payment upon first patient dosed in this study. Further details are expected to be announced in the first half of 2021.

“We are very encouraged by the results from PASADENA, demonstrating significant slowing of motor progression and improvements on imaging biomarkers consistent with disease modification, as this provides a rich dataset to directly inform and de-risk this next late-stage study,” stated Gene Kinney, PhD, president and chief executive officer of Prothena. “Results from the PASADENA study are part of a growing clinical body of evidence suggesting antibodies that optimally target misfolded proteins can result in clinically meaningful benefit. With a growing pipeline of programs based on this scientific approach, Prothena is poised to advance a number of novel therapeutics for devastating diseases.”