Pharmaceutical company AbbVie has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved JUVMO™ (tavapadon) tablets as the first and only selective D1/D5 receptor agonist for the treatment of adults with Parkinson’s disease.
“The approval of JUVMO marks the first dopaminergic breakthrough for Parkinson’s disease in decades,” said Roopal Thakkar, M.D., executive vice president, research and development, chief scientific officer, AbbVie.
“People living with Parkinson’s and the clinicians who care for them have long faced difficult trade-offs between motor control, treatment burden and tolerability. Clinicians now have a new treatment option that targets dopamine pathways differently and reduces the difficult trade-offs associated with D2/D3 selective dopamine agonists.”
Innovation in Parkinson’s Disease Treatment
For people living with Parkinson’s disease, maintaining consistent control of motor symptoms becomes increasingly challenging as the disease progresses. Oral levodopa remains the foundation of treatment and is often effective at controlling symptoms, but many patients require higher and more frequent doses over time.
These adjustments can help restore symptom control yet may also contribute to treatment-related complications such as dyskinesia. About 70% of people living with Parkinson’s disease have their oral levodopa dose increased within the first year of therapy.
These challenges highlight the need for new treatment approaches that can help address the evolving needs of people living with Parkinson’s disease. After 85 weeks on JUVMO, 93% of clinical trial participants had not increased their oral levodopa dose and 94% of participants with early Parkinson’s disease had not started oral levodopa.
Dopamine agonists have long been used to help manage symptoms and reduce reliance on oral levodopa escalation. However, currently available dopamine agonists primarily target D2/D3 receptors and their use may be limited by tolerability concerns.
JUVMO introduces a different approach, selectively targeting D1/D5 receptors to provide health care providers and patients with a new option for managing motor symptoms across the Parkinson’s disease continuum.
AbbVie expects to make JUVMO available to patients in the U.S. in October 2026.
Parkinson’s NSW reached out to AbbVie ANZ to confirm a date for local availability of this new medication. The company responded that it does not yet have any information on if or when the product will be available here.
