Rotigotine (RTG)

Rotigotine is a dopamine agonist of the non-ergoline class of medications indicated for the treatment of Parkinson's disease (PD) and Willis-Ekbom Disease (WED) . It is formulated as a once-daily transdermal patch which provides a slow and constant supply of the drug over the course of 24 hours. Like other dopamine agonists, rotigotine has been shown to possess antidepressant effects and may be useful in the treatment of depression as well. Rotigotine behaves as a partial or full agonist (depending on the assay) at all dopamine receptors listed, as an antagonist at the α2B-adrenergic receptor, and as a partial agonist at the 5-HT1A receptor. Though it has affinity for a large number of sites as shown above, at clinical doses rotigotine behaves mostly as a selective D2-like (D2, D3, D4) and D5 receptor agonist, with its α2B-adrenergic and 5-HT1A activity also possibly having some low relevance.