Guillaume Brachet, a French researcher, is researching a treatment to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease, which he himself suffers from. The first results are encouraging.
- There is no treatment to cure or slow down Parkinson’s disease.
- A researcher, affected by the disease, works on a drug.
- According to him, the results of the first tests are encouraging.
More than 270,000 people suffer from Parkinson’s disease in France. No treatment currently allows to cure it, nor even to block the evolution of the pathology. Faced with this observation, a researcher decided to act: Guillaume Brachet. Pharmacist and consultant in pharmaceutical innovation, he was diagnosed in 2018. Since then, he has decided to talk about the disease, and above all, to work on a treatment to prevent its evolution. On Tuesday April 4, he announced that the first results of the trials were encouraging, as revealed France Touraine Blue.
Innovative treatment: what is Parkinson’s disease?
Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease,”characterized by the destruction of a specific population of neurons”explain France Parkinson. The pathology specifically destroys dopamine neurons, related to movement control. “Patients remain asymptomatic until 50-70% of dopamine neurons are destroyed and the brain is no longer able to compensate.”precise Inserm. This causes three main symptoms: slowness in movement, tremors and stiffness of the limbs.
Parkinson’s disease: how did the idea for this innovative treatment come about?
It is precisely a stiffness in the left arm which alerted Guillaume Brachet. “I first saw my GP, then a neurologist. He wanted to make a differential diagnosis in order to rule out other hypotheses, he explained to The New Republic. An MRI confirmed Parkinson’s disease.” It takes time for him to accept the diagnosis, but quickly, the pharmacist immerses himself in the scientific data on the disease. Thus, he discovered a lead to develop a treatment to slow the progression of the disease. “In the scientific literature that was available, we had arguments to think that it would be something positive”, he tells France Touraine Blue. And the tests carried out have confirmed this intuition: “Thehe first tests that came back are better than expected. That is to say that we have an efficiency that is earlier and more extensive than what we had imagined. For the time being, he must create a company for “take the treatment as far as possible to bring it to clinical trials and to human therapy“.”It’s obviously very moving, as a patient, to see that it works, he confides to the Touraine media. But somewhere, there is still the whole story to be written behind it.”
New results expected in the coming months for this treatment
Guillaume Brachet will present the full results of his study on World Parkinson’s Day, Tuesday April 11. He said the results of other trials will be made public by this summer. In the meantime, he continues to talk about the disease around him. Last fall, he traveled up the Loire in a kayak to communicate about the pathology and to raise funds for his future treatment.
