Addex Therapeutics announces dipraglurant data for Parkinson’s patients

Addex Therapeutics announced data showing that dipraglurant could have beneficial effects on non-motor symptoms, or NMS, experienced by Parkinson’s patients in addition to its established positive effects on dyskinesias. Dipraglurant is an mGlu5 negative allosteric modulator, or NAM, that has successfully completed a Phase 2a study in Parkinson’s disease patients suffering from levodopa induced dyskinesia, or PD-LID. In the current study, published in Cells, the effects of dipraglurant were investigated in a rodent motor symptoms model of PD, as well as anxiety, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder, all of which are among the most prevalent NMS symptoms. Following oral administration, dipraglurant was rapidly absorbed and readily crossed the blood-brain barrier. In vivo, dipraglurant administration was found to dose-dependently impact the various NMS disease models, including reducing haloperidol-induced catalepsy, increasing punished licks in the Vogel conflict-drinking model, decreasing immobility time in the forced swim test and decreasing the number of buried marbles in the marble-burying test. Dipraglurant was found to have no effect on rotarod performance or locomotor activity.