Spokane woman gets back her ‘normal life’ from newly approved Parkinson’s disease treatment

After being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease at 50, Janice Hall felt her tremors get worse. Three years after being diagnosed she could “feel a kind of fluttering” that her medication could not stop.

In 2017, her doctor in Spokane entered her into a national medical trial. Now 62, gone are the eight pills she took a day and gone is the “off time” when Hall could not move or even get out of bed.

“I felt like I could live a normal life,” she said of her life since the new treatment. “The tremors I was having could be debilitating. But the normalcy I have right now – getting on the back of the motorcycle with my husband and ride – it changed my life again. It gave me time back.”

After years of development the U.S. Food and Drug Administration last week approved the Parkinson’s treatment for commercial use. It will not stop the progression of her disease, but Hall hopes it can help others to enjoy more of their life while living with Parkinson’s.

“It was surreal – just thinking about everything this is going to mean to so many people,” she said.

Called VYALEV, Hall’s treatment is not a new medication but a new delivery method for a longstanding drug for the neurodegenerative disease.

When contracting Parkinson’s disease, certain nerve cells that produce dopamine in the brain will die off. A lack of sufficient dopamine in the body will over time cause the symptoms associated with Parkinson’s such as tremors and stiffness.

Since the 1960s, the disease has been treated by levodopa, which the body converts to dopamine. This artificial dopamine introduced to the body will delay the disease’s worst systems, but it will not halt the progression of illness. Levodopa has typically been prescribed in pill form, but after years of daily use the oral drug stops working as well.

VYALEV circumvents these issues by pumping the drug directly under the skin and into the bloodstream. Likened to an insulin pump, patients will carry a large phone-sized device on their person 24/7. Connected to the skin through tubing, the device will provide the body with a consistent level of dopamine that pills cannot replicate.

Neurologist Jason Aldred helped conduct trials for the device in Spokane through his work at Selkirk Neurology, where he treated Hall. Aldred called VYALEV a “paradigm shift” for Parkinson’s patients whose oral medications are no longer effective.

“I think this is going to create a middle option between the oral meds and brain surgery,” he said. “Now neurologists wait until the patient is significantly disabled before they do deep brain surgery. And this will bridge those treatments. There’s going to be a lot of people that are going to benefit from this really powerful therapy and not suffer as long.”

After conducting several studies over the past decade, drug manufacturer AbbVie has sought FDA approval for VYALEV several times in recent years. Those earlier attempts were rejected because of insufficient information about the pump used and concerns over a third-party manufacturer listed in the approval application. The FDA approved VYALEV for commercial use last week.

“People living with advanced Parkinson’s disease experience daily challenges as a result of uncertainty in managing motor fluctuations, especially as their disease progresses,” AbbVie chief scientific officer Roopal Thakkar said in a statement. “We are proud to bring this innovation to patients who may benefit from motor symptom control through continuous 24-hour administration of VYALEV.”

Annual wholesale cost for VYALEV is $119,000 per patient, which can be less depending upon insurance. According to AbbVie, coverage for Medicare patients is expected in the second half of 2025.

The company has previously estimated peak annual sales of the drug could be greater than $1 billion.

Hall hopes awareness around the treatment will let the public know that Parkinson’s disease is “not a death sentence.”

Note: A previous version of this article misstated the annual wholesale price of VYALEV. It is $119,000.