CND Life Sciences announced a $3 million grant award from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program to fund a three-year multicentre study examining whether patients with Essential Tremor (ET) who test positive for phosphorylated alpha-synuclein (P-SYN) are at elevated risk of developing Parkinson’s disease (PD).
The company said the trial will enrol approximately 300 participants at 15 U.S. medical-centres beginning December 2025. The study will use the firm’s proprietary Syn‑One Test, a skin-punch biopsy assay designed to detect P-SYN in cutaneous nerve fibres, to assess whether the presence of this biomarker predicts phenoconversion from ET to PD.
CND claims that ET affects a substantial number of older adults and carries a significantly higher rate of progression to PD compared with the general population. The company positions this initiative as advancing early detection capabilities in neurodegenerative disorders and supporting future therapeutic strategies.
The study will be coordinated through established neurology centres including Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (Boston), Baylor University Medical Center, and University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas) under the oversight of leading movement-disorders neurologists.
