A New Study Demonstrates the Efficacy of Cannabinoid Mixtures for the Treatment of Parkinson's Disease

Recently published in Frontiers in Pharmacology (1), a study sponsored and co-published by Gb Sciences Inc. has reportedly “identified and validated cannabinoid ratio-controlled, Minimum Essential Mixtures (MEM) for the treatment of Parkinson's disease symptoms.” Gb Sciences Inc., is a plant-inspired, biopharmaceutical research and development company that creates patented, disease-targeted formulations of plant-inspired therapeutic mixtures for the prescription drug market (2).

“Our drug discovery process has identified promising ratio-controlled mixtures of cannabis-inspired compounds for the treatment of Parkinson's disease, which have proven effective at reducing Parkinsonian motor symptoms in an animal model of the disease," said Dr. Andrea Small-Howard, President, Chief Science Officer, and Director of Gb Sciences in a press release (2). Dr. Small-Howard presented this study and others at Canna Pharma 2022 in San Diego, California earlier this month in a talk titled “Identification of Minimum Essential Therapeutic Mixtures from Cannabis Plant Extracts by Screening in Cell and Animal Models.”

According to the press release (2), the company-sponsored study was conducted with discovery research using cell models of Parkinson's disease performed at Chaminade University (Honolulu, Hawai'i), and the MEM refinement and validation research was performed in a zebrafish model of Parkinson's disease at the National Research Council of Canada (NRC). The study is titled "Identification of minimum essential therapeutic mixtures from Cannabis plant extracts by screening in cell and animal models of Parkinson's disease" and was co-authored by Andrea Small-Howard and her collaborators Michael G. Morash, Jessica Nixon, and Lee Ellis from the National Research Council of Canada; Lori M.N. Shimoda and Helen Turner from Chaminade University of Honolulu; and Alexander J. Stokes from the University of Hawai'i at Manoa (Manoa, Hawai'i).

“The sequentially reductionist process implemented in this multi-site study preserves some of the entourage-like effects of whole plant extracts while achieving ‘relative’ simplicity within MEM that is a requirement for obtaining the manufacturing and quality control advantages of single-ingredient drugs,” the press release stated (2). “Gb Sciences' Parkinson's therapeutics are currently being tested in a rodent model of Parkinson's disease and these Parkinson's MEM have been formulated as oral dissolving tablets in preparation for human clinical trials. They are preparing for the final rounds of toxicology and pharmacology testing required for filing an Investigational New Drug (IND) Application with the US Food and Drug Administration.”

For more coverage of Canna Pharma 2022, please click here: https://www.cannabissciencetech.com/view/highlights-from-canna-pharma-2022-driving-cannabis-science-and-therapeutics-forward

References

1. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphar.2022.907579/full
2. https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2022/10/10/2530872/0/en/Gb-Sciences-Co-Publishes-Study-Demonstrating-Efficacy-of-Its-Proprietary-Cannabinoid-Mixtures-for-the-Treatment-of-Parkinson-s-Disease.html