The RISE-Health R&D Unit is the leader of the SlowPD project – Development of an innovative drug candidate to slow down Parkinson’s disease pathological progression.

The initiative, recently approved by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT) under the IC&DT call, aims to develop a new therapeutic proposal capable of slowing down the progression of Parkinson’s Disease and preventing the cognitive deficits that appear in the more advanced stages of the disease.

With a budget of over 249,000 euros, SlowPD will include Ana Clara Cristóvão, project coordinator, Samuel Silvestre, Gilberto Alves, Liliana Bernardino and Luís Passarinha, RISE-Health researchers. João Leitão and Dina Pereira, from the University of Beira Interior, are also part of the initiative’s multidisciplinary team.

The project, led by the country’s largest Research Unit, is being developed in collaboration with NeuroSoV, a spin-off from the University of Beira Interior (UBI) whose work focuses on areas such as neurodegeneration and therapeutic innovation and which, within the scope of SlowPD – Development of an innovative drug candidate to slow down Parkinson’s disease pathological progression, will support exploration activities and regulatory preparation, with a view to the future clinical and industrial valorisation of the results.