Opicapone in Parkinson’s disease: a profile of its use

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Funding: The preparation of this review was not supported by any external funding.

Conflicts of interest: L.J. Scott is a salaried employee of Adis/Springer, is responsible for the article content and declares no conflicts of interest.

Additional information about this Adis Drug Review can be found here.

Abstract

Oral opicapone (Ongentys®), a potent, third-generation, long-acting, peripheral catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT) inhibitor, is indicated as adjunctive treatment to levodopa/dopa-decarboxylase inhibitor (DDCI) therapy in adults with Parkinson’s disease (PD) and end-of-dose motor fluctuations who cannot be stabilized on those combinations. In 14- to 15-week, double-blind, multinational trials and in 1-year, open-label extension studies in this patient population, opicapone was an effective and generally well-tolerated adjunctive therapy to levodopa plus a DDCI and other PD therapy. During the double-blind phase, adjunctive opicapone 50 mg once daily provided significantly greater improvements in motor fluctuations than placebo, with these improvements noninferior to those with entacapone. These beneficial improvements in motor fluctuations with opicapone were maintained in patients who continued adjunctive opicapone during the extension studies, with patients who switched from placebo or entacapone to opicapone experiencing significant improvements in motor fluctuations during this year. No new unexpected safety concerns were identified after ≈1.4 years’ treatment with opicapone, with no serious cases of hepatotoxicity reported in clinical trials. With its convenient once-daily regimen, oral opicapone is an emerging COMT inhibitor option for use as adjunctive therapy to levodopa/DDCI therapy in adults with PD and end-of-dose motor fluctuations who cannot be stabilized on those combinations. Access to the full article can be found here.

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