Parkinson’s pipeline pushes beyond dopamine

After decades in which drug development for Parkinson’s has been all about dopamine signaling, the field is increasingly testing whether new strategies can bring it closer to treating the causes of the disease. More than 40 clinical targets have first-in-class potential, spanning α-synuclein aggregation, lysosomal dysfunction, neuroprotection, neuroinflammation, and dopaminergic biology.

But pipeline breadth should not be mistaken for proof of progress. Parkinson’s has repeatedly frustrated disease-modifying approaches, and recent setbacks for genetic targets have underscored how hard it remains to identify the right patients, biomarkers, and stage of disease...