● SK chemicals Treats Parkinson’s Disease with Just One Dose per Day
- Reduced number of taking doses improves patient convenience
- Drug price cut in half, significantly reducing financial burden for patients living in the COVID-19 era
SK chemicals will launch a new drug for Parkinson’s disease.
SK chemicals (SK chemicals’ CEO, Kwang Hyun Jeon) announced that SK will launch the new Parkinson’s disease treatment as of October 1st, developed by “BIAL”, a pharmaceutical company based in Portugal. It is the first time in Korea that a third-generation catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor, OPICAPONE is launched.
No disease-modifying treatment has yet been developed for Parkinson's disease, which has the second highest rate of prevalence after dementia, thus managing symptoms is a common treatment. Levodopa, one of the basic treatments for Parkinson’s, has been noted for its “motor fluctuations” which occur fluctuating in the duration of the drug's efficacy with long term treatment. An established solution to this problem has been co-prescribing a COMT inhibitor.
However, in case of Entacapone, second-generation COMT inhibitor, patients need to take from 5 to 8 times per day due to its short-term efficacy. In addition, side effects such as diarrhea and urine discoloration were also problems.
Ongentys may increase patient convenience with once daily treatment. Some of the major side effects of second-generation COMT inhibitors such as severe diarrhea and urine discoloration no longer occurred. And no unexpected safety issues have been found from the long term treatment more than 1 year.
In addition, Ongentys reduce the financial burden for the patients by 53% in comparison to existing drugs according to once daily treatment.
Ongentys got approval from Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in November 2019. Ongentys already got approval from EMA in 2016 and it also got approval from USFDA this April. In Asia, Korea will be the second to be launched Ongentys after Japan..
SK chemicals Marketing Planning Director Jeong-Hoon Kim emphasized that, “Ongentys solves the problems of high dose frequency of existing drugs and improves economic feasibility. We will contribute to the treatment of Parkinson’s disease in Korea through active marketing activities.”
According to the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service in Korea, the number of Parkinson's disease patients was approximately 110,000 in 2019, and the patient number has been increasing by about 5% every year. With approval from Korea’s Ministry of Food and Drug Safety last November, SK chemical will launch Ongentys.
#Photo: SK chemicals Treats Parkinson’s Disease with Just One Dose per Day