Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder that largely affects the brain and for which the only available treatments, at best, can dampen some of the symptoms experienced by the patients. There is therefore no medication that can stop or slow down the progression of the disease.

As such, the entire Parkinson community is facing numerous unmet medical needs that require urgent attention. In the last decades, Dr. Francesca Cicchetti has been working on a drug already approved for the treatment of the rare disease Cystinosis and referred to as cysteamine.

This compound has demonstrated robust and promising neuroprotective and neurorestorative effects in various animal models and human cells relevant to PD. Moreover, cysteamine has shown benefits in patients with another brain degenerative disorder called Huntington’s disease (HD) and similar, in some ways, to PD.