IRLAB Therapeutics AB, a leading company aimed on developing and exploring new treatments for Parkinson’s disease, announced that it has received a green signal for its Phase IB study of IRL757 to evaluate tolerability, signal and safety findings in Parkinson’s patients who have witnessed apathy.
The study will be organised at 16 sites throughout four European countries and will get full funding from McQuade Center for Strategic Research and Development, LLC (MSRD), a company’s development partner. It's an indirect branch of Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. Further, the study will involve 75 patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease who have experienced apathy.
This enrolment will be organised at the study sites in Bulgaria, Spain, Poland and Germany. The two existing Phase 1 studies covered one in healthy older adults 65 and above and another in healthy young adults. In these studies, IRL757 proved to be absorbent and served a positive systemic reaction after dosing for a full 10 days. All candidates completed both studies, and luckily, there were no negative events spotted in the record.
CEO of IRLAB, Kristina Torfgard, said, “We are thrilled about the Phase IB Signal Finding Study of our IRL757 drug candidate in Parkinson’s patients with apathy. This extreme leads to disability for most of the people living with Parkinson’s disease. Recently, there is a exponential medical need for a promising treatment of apathy, which has few treatment options. With powerful financial and scientific support from our partner MSRD, we have established this first and best-in-class drug candidate very smoothly.”
MSRD and IRLAB are valuable members of the global Otsuka group of companies. These members were tied in the partnership in May 2024 to upgrade IRL757 via proven concept-based trials as a perfect treatment for apathy. The IRLAB’s drug candidate IRL757 has shown promising effects in various preclinical models of cognitive function involving enhanced motivation.
Apathy is specified by rejection, lack of response and indifference to the regular activities outside the world. This condition turns into a significant disability, triggering numerous individuals living with Parkinson’s disease and different neurodegenerative diseases. For now, there are no such drugs discovered in the market to cure apathy. This positive effect is believed to be linked with the drug candidate’s potential to dodge disruption in the central nervous system. The system that indicates the proposed approach to underscore apathy in various neurological conditions.
Mansi Kadam is a market research writer with over 3 years of experience analyzing trends in the healthcare industry. At Towards Healthcare, she covers innovations in medical sector, sustainability initiatives, and the evolving regulatory landscape.
