Il-yang Pharmaceutical said Wednesday that it plans to start full-fledged clinical trials in Europe to develop its Parkinson's disease drugs.

The company has signed a contract with a clinical contract research organization (CRO) hospital in France based on the results of animal experiments conducted at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in the U.S. and six-month preclinical results in Japan. Il-yang plans to start the clinical trials from the second half of this year.

The company designed the trial to carry out studies for phase 1 and 2 simultaneously, and it has undergone several preliminary checks on its candidate substance. Head of the European Parkinson's Disease Association will take the lead on the study.

The candidate substance selected by Il-yang effectively inhibits α-synuclein aggregation in the brain, which is a major factor in Parkinson's disease. The company published a paper related to it in Human Molecular Genetics, an SCI-level international medical journal.

“Most of the Parkinson's drugs did not pass through the body's blood-brain barrier (BBB),” a company official said. “However, Il-yang's candidate substance overcomes the existing shortcomings by easily passing through the brain BBB in animal experiments.”

The company does not expect to see any failure in its candidate substance due to side effects, it added.