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Biotech / Medical : TITAN PHARMACEUTICAL (TTP) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Icebrg who wrote (259)	11/12/2003 8:50:31 AM
From: Icebrg	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 362

Titan's Proneura Technology Prevents Onset of Motor Complications In Validated Parkinson's Disease Model Wednesday November 12, 8:34 am ET Data presented at the Society for Neuroscience 33rd Annual Meeting SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., Nov. 12 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Titan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (Amex: TTP - News) today announced positive preclinical results demonstrating that continuous drug delivery using the Company's ProNeura(TM) technology reduced the risk of motor symptoms in a validated primate model of Parkinson's disease. The study results were presented today in New Orleans at the Society for Neuroscience 33rd Annual Meeting. Parkinson's disease is characterized by the gradual degeneration of dopaminergic neurons in the brain, and resulting lower levels of dopamine in specific brain regions (the striatum). This lack of dopamine is currently treated in Parkinson's patients by the oral administration of levodopa or other dopamine agonists. While these agents are both safe and effective at early stages of treatment, over time most patients begin to develop side effects known as motor complications. The more common complications include involuntary movements (dyskinesias) and a progressive shortening of benefit time after dosing (wearing off fluctuations). There has been indirect evidence that these motor complications are not caused by levodopa itself, but by the way it is administered. Under normal conditions, there is constant production of dopamine by certain neurons in the brain, which results in stable levels of dopamine in the striatum. In Parkinson's disease, the loss of neurons that provide dopamine to the striatum reduces this stable dopamine signal. Treatment with levodopa pills results in fluctuating dopamine levels, which are high immediately after administration, and then low several hours after dosing, causing significant cyclic changes in dopamine levels. Researchers have hypothesized that these cyclically varying levels of dopamine from oral administration contribute to the onset of motor complications. However, the theory that such varying dopamine levels is a cause of motor complications has never been demonstrated directly, largely because of the difficulty in maintaining constant levels of dopaminergic drugs in animal models or patients for a sufficiently long time to evaluate the development of motor complications. As described in the study results presented today, Titan's ProNeura technology allowed the direct testing and initial confirmation of this hypothesis in a validated primate model of Parkinson's disease, the MPTP model. cont...