Merck Serono has . . . has handed back its rights to the program to Milan, Italy-based developer Newron Pharmaceuticals.
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Salfinamide, which is in late-stage development for use as an add-on to levodopa to treat the neurological disorder, is Newron's lead drug.
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The drugmaker plans to cut support of the Phase III program after April 2012, costing the firm €40 million. The company made the decision to shed the program through a review of its pipeline. Merck Serono is still partnering with Newron on a pair of other experimental CNS drugs called pruvanserin and sarizotan.
And the sad truth (my editorial comment):
Merck Serono is among a host of pharma outfits that have chopped programs from their pipelines over the past year amid a number of factors such as limits on R&D spending in certain areas and governments such as Germany's holding new drugs to higher standards before agreeing to pay for them. The development of neuroscience drugs has been hit particularly hard, with companies such as GlaxoSmithKline ($GSK) and Sanofi ($SNY) ordering cutbacks in early R&D of CNS drugs.
Source: Fierce Biotech

I am in that clinical trial. Well, technically I am no longer in it because I had to withdraw. I'm 20+ yrs with PD and have been in approx 6 trials over the yrs. So I am no stranger to PD's symptoms and side effects of medications. This was the first trial I had to withdraw from. Among many other minor side effects, I started hallucinating for the first time in my life. All I saw were bugs...EVERYWHERE. I'll leave out some of the nastier details, but suffice it to say it was disturbing enough to chase me away. But remember, every patient is different,symptoms are different, side effects are different. And for all I know I was on the placebo! (Strongly doubt it.) The others in the group also had negative experiences with no improvement of ANYTHING. Only one other person experienced hallucinations.
So I hope this was informative, if not encouraging. There are plenty of other treatments coming along, and one day...

Than you so much for sharing this with us. Sometimes we never know why drugs are dropped. That doesn't meann that everyone reacted as you did, but it's good to have this kind of info.

I wish you the best - I have been in several trials myself (I think about 6, too), and I have yet to find the cure. BUT we did all we could, right?
Peg