From a Parkinson's disease expert: Rasagiline and the future of therapy

Abstract

John Finberg is a professor of pharmacology at the Faculty of Medicine, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, home of Israel's two Nobel laureates. He and his colleague Prof. Moussa Youdim were instrumental in the early clinical development of the anti-Parkinson drug rasagiline, which gained UK- and EU-marketing authorization in 2005 and US FDA approval in 2006. In our interview, Finberg reflects on his clinical research to develop rasagiline as a commercial drug and its proposed pharmacological mechanisms of action. Moreover, he elucidates the current state of anti-Parkinson drug discovery and offers direction for future research.