Levo-Dopa is the oral medication patients take to alleviate the...

Levo-Dopa is the oral medication patients take to alleviate the symptoms due to the reduction in their own brain dopamine levels because of PD. Because the dose doesn't last 24 hours and to limit the side effects they need to take it intermittently during the day. So if the patient does the UPDRS evaluation when the medication is working, thats UPDRS "on", and when they are not taking it that is called UPDRS "off". The difference between the two tests would be an indication of the responsiveness to L-Dopa, and therefore how intact the "circuitry" still is, apart from the dopamine producing cells which are dying off because of Parkinsons Disease.

Yes, it would have been prudent to have selected patients with good responsiveness to L-Dopa for the trial, but it would be also useful to know whether or not NTcell has a benefit for patients who have suffered more severe global damage and are poor responders.

I suppose looking at the results it might in fact be simply too early to know whether or not NTcell doesn't work. Neurones grow and heal slowly, and perhaps what was most surprising was the steady improvement in the placebo patients during the entire 6 month period. Thats what really appears to have scuttled the result, since I think most people would have predicted an early improvement which waned by the end of the 6 months.

It would be a real bummer to sell all the shares, take a loss and then find out in 12 months time that the sham surgery patients had gradually worsened from baseline while cohort 2 had improved to -15....

That would pretty much sum up the roller coaster of investing in biotech...