Hope for Parkinson's Patients Through Clinical Research

16th April, 2025

Parkinson’s is the world’s fastest growing neurological disease. It occurs when there is a loss of neurons that produce the chemical messenger dopamine in the brain, affecting movement and mood.

Parkinson’s disease currently affects around 100,000 Australians, with an additional 14,000 being diagnosed with the disease every year. Parkinson’s costs the economy $3 billion annually and the healthcare system $600 million annually. Without a medical breakthrough, the number of Australians living with Parkinson’s will double approximately every 15 years.

Deep brain stimulation (DBS) is an option for people whose symptoms aren’t controlled with medicines. Candidates typically have had symptoms for at least four years, experience “on/off” fluctuations, troublesome dyskinesias, or medication side effects, and still retain a good motor response to levodopa, though the duration of response may be short-lived. DBS significantly relieves motor symptoms, especially motor fluctuations but is not cure, nor can it stop disease progression.

However, like any surgical procedure, DBS can carry risks, highlighting the need for continued medical research to improve Parkinson’s treatment, particularly developing treatments to slow the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

The Garvan Institute’s Australian Parkinson’s Mission (APM) is an innovative seven-year research program, combining clinical trials and biomarker technologies with breakthrough genomics for people living with Parkinson’s disease. 

The APM aims to identify and fast-track effective treatments for people with Parkinson’s, increase access to repurposed and new drugs and identify potential diagnostic tools for Parkinson’s to enable early disease detection and intervention.

“It’s a privilege to serve as St Vincent’s Site [Principal Investigator] for APM 1 and APM 2 disease modification studies for Parkinson’s disease. In these clinical trials we are testing existing medications for their effectiveness in slowing Parkinson’s progression. Repurposing medications in this way provides a faster route to delivering treatment to patients in the clinic, as the drugs we are evaluating already have a known safety record and are readily available.” – A/Prof Stephen Tisch.

In 2019, the APM received $30 million in Federal funding from the Medical Research Future Fund to slow and stop the progression of Parkinson’s disease.

In response to the urgent need for more effective and accessible treatment options, ground breaking research initiatives such as the Australian Parkinson’s Mission are paving the way forward.

Support medical research today