Disease modifying treatment trials in Parkinson’s disease: how to balance expectations and interests of patients, physicians and industry partners?

BACKGROUND: The advent of therapeutic strategies designed to modify the disease course in Parkinson’s disease has raised great expectations in the currently conducted clinical trials. However, we see ethical challenges in the cooperation of industry and clinical partners, specifically evident in the way recruitment is performed. We here discuss the different positions and challenges of all involved to set the stage for a study and recruitment culture taking into account the expectations of all: (i) patients and their caregivers, ready to take the considerable burden of clinical trials in hope for the development of disease-modifying treatments; (ii) physicians and study nurses, obligated to the patients’ well-being and benefit who accompany and supervise patients closely as basis for the performance of elaborate clinical trials (iii) industrial partners, investing years of efforts and finances to develop new treatments. CONCLUSIONS: We conclude that the current competitive race for enrollment in clinical studies in PD is challenging the primary goal to ensure patients’ benefit and formulate requests to the industrial partners to encounter these concerns.