Lilly, Medtronic team up on Parkinson's stragegy

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) - U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co (LLY.N) and device maker Medtronic Inc (MDT.N) on Tuesday said they will test a method to treat Parkinson's disease similar to one abandoned by Amgen Inc and Medtronic in 2004.

The method involves delivering a protein called GDNF (glial cell line derived neurotrophic factor) to the brain, through a catheter connected to an implanted pump and drug reservoir.

GDNF is a protein that potentially promotes survival of many types of nerve cells called neurons. Some researchers believe it offers the best hope yet of a treatment to slow or partially reverse Parkinson's disease, a degenerative brain disease believed to be caused by loss of neurons that produce the messenger chemical dopamine.

But GDNF's potential for treating Parkinson's disease has been unrealized because of difficulty adequately delivering it to a region of the brain where neurons that produce dopamine are located.

Other companies have failed with numerous approaches to deliver the drug, including intranasally, with hopes it will protect dopamine neurons.

Amgen Inc (AMGN.O) in 2004 stopped a 48-patient trial in which its own formulation of GDNF was delivered using Medtronic technology. The California-based biotechnology company said it halted the study due to a risk of irreversible brain damage and the absence of any demonstrated medical benefit.

"The technical hurdle has been to distribute the drug to cover the appropriate area of the brain," said Ros Smith, senior director of regenerative biology at Lilly.

Smith said Lilly's drug is a new formulation of GDNF that will be delivered by Medtronic's improved programmable pump and catheter, and that it would take a number of years to conduct clinical trials.

In the meantime, she noted that other drugmakers were exploring their own various approaches to treat Parkinson's disease with GDNF. (Reporting by Ransdell Pierson, editing by Maureen Bavdek)