The Australian Parkinson’s Mission (APM) – is an international collaboration between the Garvan Institute, Shake It Up Australia Foundation, Parkinson’s Australia, Cure Parkinson’s and the Michael J. Fox Foundation. The collaboration has been awarded a A$30 million government grant to identify and fast-track better treatments in a first step towards personalised medicine in Parkinson’s.
Cure Parkinson’s International Linked Clinical Trials (iLCT) initiative was founded on the principle of collaboration and since its launch in 2012, the programme has brought together global experts in the Parkinson’s arena to ensure that clinical trials of potentially disease-modifying treatments for people with Parkinson’s get underway with urgency. This innovative Australian-led programme of research expands the global Linked Clinical Trials programme spearheaded by Cure Parkinson’s and establishes a first step towards personalised medicine providing an opportunity to deliver multiple stage clinical trials that also incorporate advanced genetic and biomarker studies in a way that has not been done before.
The APM will test the effectiveness of four repurposed drugs selected by the International Linked Clinical Trials committee that may potentially slow, stop or even reverse Parkinson’s.
The Australian Parkinson’s Mission employs an entirely new design for Parkinson’s. The findings from our clinical trials will be integrated with analyses of patients’ genomic information and biomarkers – naturally occurring measurable indicators of a disease. This will help us identify the right drug for the right patient at the right time to halt this disease.
Associate Professor Antony Cooper, Head of Neurodegeneration and Neurogenomics at the Garvan Institute, and iLCT committee member