I expect followers of the PBT forum will be interested in this...

I expect followers of the PBT forum will be interested in this link to an article just published in the January 28 online issue of the journal Neurology.

Placebo effect of medication cost in Parkinson disease. A randomised double blind study

The clinical researchers observed a placebo effect that "significantly improved motor function and decreased brain activation in a direction and magnitude comparable to, albeit less than, levodopa."

A description of the results of the study has been summarised in the overnight issue of FierceBiotech.

One big reason why CNS drug development has foundered

“When you want to develop a drug for, say, cancer, there are some very objective measures--such as survival rate--that tell regulators just how effective it is compared to a standard drug or placebo. But in diseases involving the brain, like depression or even Parkinson's, scientists often have to settle for crude measures for assessing how patients perform or feel after treatment. And the wild card here is a placebo effect that can be very difficult to factor into studies and has been fingered for the death of multiple development programs.”

“Case in point: Dr. Alberto Espay at the University of Cincinnati gathered together 12 Parkinson's patients and told them they would each get two shots, one a pricey drug that cost $1,500 a treatment, and the other costing only $100. And in a calculated deception that would violate any trial protocol, he told them which was which as they got their injection.”

“The pricey drug--they were both actually saline solutions--delivered a remarkable 28% improvement in motor skills or a 7-point improvement in one motor test given following therapy. The cheap drug eked out a three-point improvement on the same test.”