Sorrento Therapeutics Announces Discovery of a Potential Non-Dopaminergic Approach to Controlling Parkinson’s Motor Symptoms

Sorrento Therapeutics (NASDAQ:SRNE) has announced results from its discovery study exploring potential benefits of resiniferatoxin in controlling neuro-inflammatory processes associated with Parkinson’s disease.

As quoted in the press release:

Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a chronic neurodegenerative disorder characterized by motor symptoms such as bradykinesia, rest tremor, postural disturbances, and rigidity. Many clinical and pathological studies have shown that the disease extends beyond the substantia nigra and involves non-dopaminergic neurotransmitter systems that mediate both motor and non-motor symptoms.

Several therapeutic strategies have been proposed to treat such symptoms. However, despite the significant morbidity associated with these symptoms, research into and drug development for these problems remain scarce.

Transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1) is involved in pain perception and is highly expressed in sensory neurons. TRPV1 is also present in the brain where it may play a role in modulating neuronal function, controlling motor behaviour and regulating neuroinflammation. TRPV1 receptors are considered an important modulator of basal ganglia functions, and pharmacological changes to cells expressing those receptors might lead to protective therapies in Parkinson-induced motor symptoms.

“We believe from our experience in animal health, that many chronic degenerative disease processes, including neurodegenerative diseases, have an inflammatory component whose importance is often under appreciated,” stated Dr Alexis Nahama, Neuro-Therapeutics Business Unit Leader at Sorrento. “We also know that neurogenic inflammation pathways involve TRPV1 expressing cells, and Resiniferatoxin is uniquely suited to modulate excessive afferent nerve signaling. So we took a chance and set-up to test if we would have any beneficial effect on gait and motor deficiences in a well established disease model of Parkinson’s disease (Sorrento Study C195118. The Effects of Single Intrathecal Administration of Resiniferatoxin on AAV-A53T-induced PD-like Pathology in C57Bl/6J mice) at tested doses that could be translated into human therapies. We feel we hit the jackpot.”

Click here to read the full press release.