Tackling Parkinson’s disease and other neurological disorders – a crucial part of the global public health and prosperity agenda

By Matthias Berninger and André Guillaume

“It is as if a person is alive and awake, but unable to express their aliveness, their intentions, or their feelings”, wrote the late, great neurologist Oliver Sacks in his pivotal work, Awakenings. “The tragedy is not the loss of intellect, but the loss of movement, of spontaneity, of the outward signs of life.”

This was Sacks’ moving depiction of patients living with a severe form of Parkinson’s disease – a progressive and the fastest growing neurodegenerative disorder that ultimately leads to motor (and in some cases cognitive) impairment. There is currently no cure or proven disease-modifying treatments for the 10 million people living with the disease worldwide: treatments to date have focused on managing symptoms through medications or surgical interventions. For me, this topic is also personal, as people who have made a huge difference in my life suffer from Parkinson’s.

Such an impasse is sadly not unusual for neurological disorders. For too long, neurological and neurodegenerative diseases have been significantly underfunded  – despite the fact that they stand above cardiovascular disease as the top contributor to the global disease burden.

In Europe, brain disorders account for approximately 40% of the total disease burden, and disorders of the nervous system are the largest cause of disability, yet less than 10% of the total biomedical research budget is allocated to neurological research.

This underinvestment is replicated in the U.S., where funding for the flagship federal initiative on brain health plummeted from $680 million in 2023 to $321 million in 2025, despite the overall budget seeing modest increases.

However, despite their global prevalence and burden, Parkinson’s and other brain diseases have been ignored in global public health frameworks too. The WHO did not adopt an Intersectoral Global Action Plan (IGAP) for brain health until 2022 – although its approach has spurred some promising developments. India has integrated neurological disorders into its Universal Health Coverage benefits, Ghana has prioritized epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease as it scales up access to medicines and technologies, and Tanzania is rolling out several initiatives to broaden access to treatment.

Global health frameworks must incorporate brain health if they are to succeed

Astonishingly, as neurological specialists have noted, while the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs include mental health, they do not fully address brain health as a holistic concept. This is an omission that needs addressing: not only is brain health crucial to achieving SDG 3 (“Good health and well-being”), but it has an indisputable link to SDG 8 (“Decent work and economic growth”) and SDG 10 (“Reduced inequalities”) too. Some researchers have even argued that brain health is crucial to achieving all 17 of the SDGs, as it “provides a lens for dealing with economic strain, productivity slowdown, sustainability, gender equity, creativity shortcomings, mental health and well-being, erosion of the social fabric of communities, and the need for more industrial innovation”.

Given the growing prevalence and harm caused by neurological diseases, this vacuum urgently needs addressing at a systemic level. The likelihood of revising the scope and focus of the SDGs themselves is waning, given that the Goals will expire in 2030, and there are limited procedural opportunities to adapt their indicators and other metrics. However, when working towards the SDGs, it is vital that countries embed brain health considerations into their programs. Indeed, doing this is crucial, given that neurological conditions are responsible for 443 million years of healthy life lost in 2021 due to illness, disability and premature death. Moreover, as we begin planning for a post-SDG world, it is vital to build brain health into future sustainability frameworks from their conception.

The widespread neglect of this category undermines quality of life and longevity for millions, to the detriment of individuals, families and societies across the world. But exciting scientific developments are on the horizon, creating hope in the battle against neurological diseases.

At Bayer, we are proud to be part of this battle – our vision of “health for all, hunger for none” clearly cannot be achieved without also ensuring brain health for all, with Parkinson’s disease being one of our current areas of focus.

Combining the dual power of cell and gene therapies to address Parkinson’s

One of our weapons in the fight is Leaps by Bayer, our impact investment arm which aims to conquer ten of the biggest challenges facing humanity by funding the researchers and innovators pursuing fundamental breakthroughs in life science. Leap 5 is to “protect brain and mind” – and one of the first and largest investments Leaps by Bayer made, therefore, was into BlueRock Therapeutics. After co-founding BlueRock with Versant Ventures, Bayer was so impressed with the company’s work that we acquired it fully in 2019. BlueRock aimed to commercialize the pioneering work of Drs. Lorenz Studer, Gordon Keller and Michael LaFlamme, who had begun pioneering work into regenerative cell therapies in treating neurological conditions – primarily Parkinson’s disease.

The core focus of BlueRock’s investigational cell therapy is replacing the dopamine-producing neurons that have degenerated in Parkinson’s patients.

Originally, BlueRock’s scientists started with “blank slate” stem cells (which had the potential to become any type of cell in the body), and programmed these to become dopamine-producing neurons once implanted into the brain. The newly implanted cells will then mature to take over the job of producing dopamine, potentially restoring some of the lost brain function and improving Parkinson’s symptoms.

This approach is still in development – but early clinical trials are giving us good grounds for optimism, as Nature Magazine reported in a cover story in April (other outlets subsequently reported on the trial too). If the development program is successful, this investigational therapy has the potential to change the course of the disease by reducing the symptoms of Parkinson’s, thus improving the daily lives of patients and contributing to public health goals.

In parallel, Bayer sought another avenue toward innovative treatments for neurological conditions with our acquisition of Asklepios BioPharmaceutical, since renamed AskBio. As a fully integrated end-to-end gene therapy company, one of AskBio’s key areas of focus is its investigational therapy for Parkinson’s disease.

AskBio leverages the power of gene therapy, aiming to promote the health of dopamine-producing neurons, with the goal of improving motor function and potentially slowing the progression of the disease.

The program is a result of a collaboration with Dr. Krystof Bankiewicz, who pioneered and has continued for decades his work of delivering gene therapies directly into the brain. This particular therapy focuses on delivering the gene for GDNF (a protein that supports the neurons that degenerate in Parkinson’s) directly in the area of interest in the brain with the objective of promoting the health of neurons.

AskBio’s therapy is now in Phase 2 testing, and researchers are also exploring its use for neurodegenerative conditions beyond Parkinson’s, further boosting its potential as a groundbreaking therapy. 

With their complementary approaches and potential to deliver trailblazing treatments for neurological conditions, AskBio and BlueRock have become the nucleus of Bayer’s work in gene and cell therapy (although they both continue to operate as independent entities) – and their work offers a bright beacon of hope for Parkinson’s research and patients.

Brain health must become a public health priority

It is vital that Bayer and our peers continue to invest in and develop the therapies and technologies that could relieve or even reverse the symptoms of diseases like Parkinson’s, thus immeasurably improving the wellbeing of millions of patients around the world and addressing a systemic public health burden. However, no matter how groundbreaking or innovative many of the newly emerging therapies promise to be, making them accessible to patients in need is a challenging process.

It is therefore crucial to continue investing in this field as well as to win the support of regulators, health systems, and society in accelerating the commercialization of safe and effective treatments.

We’ll end as we began, with Oliver Sacks. “Our brains are as extravagantly specialized as our bodies”, he wrote in 1985. Perhaps Sacks did not go far enough: the more we learn about the brain, the more we realize it is the most complex organ in the body, and one of the most sophisticated structures on the planet. It is time to pay brain health the attention it deserves.