THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY INNOVATION AWARD 2004 GRANTED TO ORION PHARMA
18.11.2004

The entacapone products have become market leaders

Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurological disease that mainly damages the extrapyramidal system in the brain. Typical symptoms include coarse rest tremor, slow movement and muscle stiffness. The number of Parkinson’s patients worldwide is about 6.3 million, according to the European Parkinson’s disease Association. Orion Corporation Orion Pharma innovation entacapone is a Finnish innovation for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. The entacapone products have become Orion Pharma’s most important product group. The Finnish Chemical Industry Innovation Award for 2004 was granted to Orion Corporation Orion Pharma for its innovation.

The Chemical Industry Innovation Award is presented annually in recognition of a promising chemical innovation that has practical applications. The Award carries a prize of EUR 10,000. The objective of the Innovation Award is to encourage research-oriented innovation,  advance commercialisation of innovations and promote new enterprise in the chemical sector. In its decision to reward Orion Corporation Orion Pharma, the Scientific Advisory Board of the Chemical Industry made a special note of the unique nature of the innovation, the versatility of the different aspects of the medical research and the leading position on the markets.

The Orion Pharma innovation entacapone, a patented preparation, is an inhibitor for the medication of Parkinson’s disease. When combined with the Parkinson’s disease medicine levodopa, entacapone enables patients with alternating clinical status to benefit significantly more from levodopa, their symptoms are kept under control for a longer period and their quality of life improves considerably. Parkinson’s patients lack dopamine in the basal nuclei of the brain. The basic medicine for the disease, levodopa, transforms in the brain into dopamine.  The splitting of levodopa, caused by the COMT enzyme, makes medication more difficult. Entacapone inhibits the enzyme and slows down the splitting.

Entacapone is both a chemical research and a life science innovation. It took the co-operation of hundreds of specialists in various disciplines of science and medicine, as any pharmaceutical development project, and that active work still continues. The latest task was to combine levodopa, the DDC inhibitor carbidopa and entacapone in one single tablet. To date, over 900 international publications have been written on entacapone, and it is deemed to be the model substance of COMT inhibition. Orion has produced over 100 publications and the project boasts 15 academic dissertations.

Entacapone has rapidly reached a recognised status in the medication of Parkinson’s disease and is today an integral part of evidence-based treatment strategy. After the launching of the preparation, the user experience accumulated on this medicine is over 500,000 patient years. The entacapone products (Comtess®/Comtan®, Stalevo®) have become Orion Pharma’s most important product group, and entacapone is the leading COMT inhibitor on all the markets. They generated 74.3 million Euros worth of net sales for Orion Pharma in 2003, and the sales have continued to grow substantially during 2004.

The Board of the Chemical Industry Federation of Finland introduced the Innovation Award in 1997, at the initiative of the Scientific Advisory Board, a body addressing scientific and technological questions and comprising representatives of the Finnish chemical industry, universities and research institutes.

The Award is granted annually to a person, team or enterprise that has introduced a promising chemical innovation that can be exploited industrially or that has already entered the utilisation phase. Activities carried out at universities, research institutes and enterprises are all eligible for the Award.

Orion Pharma is a research and development-orientated pharmaceutical division of the Orion Group and one of the leading companies in the healthcare sector in Scandinavia. Pharmaceutical R&D at Orion Pharma focuses on three core therapy areas: CNS therapies, cardiology and critical care and hormonal therapies.

Further information:

Orion Corporation Orion Pharma
Esa Heinonen, R&D Director
Tel. +358 010 429 4302
esa.heinonen@orion.fi

Orion Corporation Group Communications
Tuula Laitinen, Communications Manager
Tel. +358 010 429 2136
tuula.laitinen@orion.fi

www.orion.fi

Chemical Industry Federation of Finland
Riitta Juvonen, Assistant Director
Tel. +358 9 1728 4318
riitta.juvonen@chemind.fi

www.chemind.fi

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