Niagen Bioscience has secured a worldwide exclusive commercial licence agreement with Haukeland University Hospital, Bergen, Norway, for the development of a treatment for Parkinson’s disease (PD).
The agreement grants Niagen Bioscience exclusive rights to proprietary intellectual property, know-how and data, critical for future regulatory filings in the European Union under European Medicines Agency guidelines for the potential treatment of PD using its patented nicotinamide riboside (Niagen) molecule.
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It is now the only company that holds the right to seek regulatory approval for a pharmaceutical nicotinamide riboside (NR) therapy for PD patients.
Niagen Bioscience can choose to commercialise the drug candidate independently or sublicense the programme to a strategic pharmaceutical partner.
Niagen Bioscience CEO Rob Fried stated: “This milestone underscores our long-term commitment to translating scientific innovation into meaningful therapeutic solutions.”
A key element of this agreement is access to scientific data from the NOPARK trial, the largest clinical investigation of NAD+ augmentation in early PD to date.
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By GlobalDataCompleted in June 2025, the study involved 400 individuals with early-stage PD across 12 sites in Norway, who received either 500mg of nicotinamide riboside or placebo for 52 weeks. The primary endpoint was the MDS-UPDRS total score, a standard measure of PD progression.
Professor Charalampos Tzoulis, who leads the NOPARK study, commented, “This is an important milestone in our efforts to bring a potentially disease-modifying treatment for PD closer to patients.” He highlighted the agreement as a significant step towards developing treatments for PD and other neurodegenerative disorders.
The agreement builds on a collaboration between Haukeland University Hospital’s Dr Charalampos Tzoulis and Niagen Bioscience’s external research programme, CERP. Since March 2018, CERP has supported 300 research collaborations and more than 35 peer-reviewed clinical studies, including several assessing the therapeutic potential of Niagen NR for PD.
In conjunction with the licence agreement, Niagen Bioscience has established a wholly-owned subsidiary, marking a pivotal step in its transition from supplement science to regulated drug development for neurodegenerative diseases with high unmet needs.
