Six months ago, a quiet revolution began in the corridors of University College London Hospital. A man named Graham Edwins took his first dose of trial medication and became the inaugural participant in the largest clinical trial for Parkinson's disease ever mounted anywhere in the world.
Today, that trial — the Edmond J. Safra Accelerating Clinical Trials in Parkinson's Disease, or EJS ACT-PD — has attracted more than 1,600 registrations across dozens of NHS hospitals throughout England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland. And Scotland is preparing to join.
A Disease Without a Brake
Some 166,000 people in the United Kingdom are living with Parkinson's disease, including 14,000 in Scotland. Across the UK, someone receives a diagnosis roughly every 20 minutes — about 28,000 people each year.
Yet there is not a single approved treatment that slows, halts, or reverses the disease's relentless progression. Every drug currently available merely manages the symptoms — the tremor, the stiffness, the creeping loss of independence — and even those become less effective over time.
EJS ACT-PD aims to change that.
The £26 Million Mission
Backed by £26 million from the Medical Research Council, the National Institute for Health and Care Research, Cure Parkinson's, The Michael J. Fox Foundation, Parkinson's UK, and several charitable foundations, the trial is led by Professor Thomas Foltynie of UCL and Professor Camille Carroll of Newcastle University.
Its design is groundbreaking. Rather than the conventional approach of testing one drug at a time — a process that can consume a decade and tens of millions of pounds for a single candidate — EJS ACT-PD uses a multi-arm, multi-stage platform. Multiple drugs are tested simultaneously against a single placebo group. If one drug shows no promise, it is dropped and replaced without shutting down the entire trial.
The result is an estimated 25 per cent reduction in assessment time — potentially shaving years off the journey from laboratory to prescription pad.
"Parkinson's disease is the second most common neurodegenerative disease worldwide, and yet there are no treatments that can slow its relentless progression," said Professor Foltynie. "Our trial's wide UK coverage ends the postcode lottery for clinical research, so that underserved populations with Parkinson's can participate."
What's Being Tested
The trial's first phase is evaluating two repurposed drugs already proven safe in other contexts: telmisartan, a common blood pressure medication, and terazosin, typically prescribed for an enlarged prostate. Both showed early evidence suggesting they might slow Parkinson's progression.
A third drug, ursodeoxycholic acid, currently used for liver disease, is expected to join the trial later this year.
Embedded sub-studies funded by The Michael J. Fox Foundation are exploring whether wearable technologies can monitor symptoms digitally and whether specific molecular signatures of the disease can be identified in participant samples — research that could reshape how Parkinson's is tracked in future trials.
Scotland Prepares
Three Scottish hospitals have been selected as trial sites: Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh, and the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow. Ninewells and Edinburgh are in the set-up phase, while Glasgow is at an earlier stage of site selection, with the trial team hoping to have all UK sites operational by mid-2026.
For Scotland's 14,000 people living with Parkinson's, the arrival of local trial sites will be significant. Until now, the nearest open recruitment centres have been in Newcastle and other English cities — a considerable journey for people already contending with mobility challenges.
"You Fight Back"
Graham Edwins, the trial's first participant at UCLH, was diagnosed with young-onset Parkinson's. His reason for volunteering was characteristically direct: "Your choices are denial, acceptance, or to fight back, which is what I feel I am doing by taking part. Even if I don't directly benefit, if I can help progress a potential treatment or cure for the next person diagnosed in their prime, then it's a job well done."
In Bath, 70-year-old Pete Sinclair was among the first to join at the Royal United Hospital. Diagnosed in 2020 after noticing he was dragging his foot while walking, Sinclair was emphatic: "Taking part in research like this is so important — you really are playing an important role in finding treatments that could make such a vital difference to people in years to come."
The Road Ahead
The trial aims to complete recruitment over the next four years, with participants monitored for up to three years through a mix of in-person and remote appointments. Medication is delivered directly to participants' homes — a design shaped by extensive consultation with patients and carers who insisted the trial be accessible to those in rural areas or with limited mobility.
Dr Kevin McFarthing, who chairs the trial's patient and public engagement group and lives with Parkinson's himself, put it simply: "By accelerating clinical research, this trial means that drugs that slow or stop the progression of Parkinson's are coming closer for people like me and for generations to come."
Six months in, EJS ACT-PD is expanding across the country. It is not a cure — not yet. But for 166,000 people in the UK, and millions more worldwide, it represents something that has been in desperately short supply: hope grounded in science, backed by serious money, and — at last — genuinely within reach.
