Health Canada yesterday gave the thumbs up to Teva's new Parkinson's therapy Azilect for use as a monotherapy in patients with early disease and alongside the gold-standard levodopa in moderate-to-advanced Parkinson's.

Health Canada yesterday gave the thumbs up to Teva's new Parkinson's therapy Azilect (rasagiline) for use as a monotherapy in patients with early disease and alongside the gold-standard levodopa in moderate to advanced Parkinson's.

The approval was based on data from three major clinical studies involving in excess of 1,500 patients, across the spectrum of the disease stages.

Azilect is the first oral, once-daily therapy for Parkinson's disease and will be launched onto the Canadian market next month, where Teva estimates that some 100,000 people have the condition. However, there was little movement of the company's share price on the Nasdaq stock exchange in the USA, with it remaining flat at close of play yesterday at $34.01.

Azilect has been developed in conjunction with Denmark's Lundbeck, but Teva recently ended a tie-up with Eisai for promotion of the drug in the USA; it was given the green light for marketing there in May and was launched in July but faced a somewhat tumultuous time on the road to approval after the US Food and Drug Administration requested additional data. It is already available in Europe and both Teva and Lundbeck are looking to Azilect to help bolster their profits.