After a summer marred by disappointing clinical-trial results in patients with Alzheimer’s dis
After a summer marred by disappointing clinical-trial results in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, drug developers are regrouping to plot a fresh course in the battle against the devastating disorder.The bad news began in July and August, when Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer learned that their biological drug bapineuzumab had failed to show any benefit in two large trials. Then, on 24 August, Eli Lilly said that its drug solanezumab had not hit its goal of significantly slowing the memory decline and dementia that characterize Alzheimer’s disease.Both of the failed drugs targeted amyloid-β, a protein that forms plaques in the brains of patients with the disease and that has long been the prime suspect for causing it. But rather than abandoning the amyloid hypothesis, scientists are pinning their hopes on innovative clinical-trial designs and new diagnostics that would allow them to test compounds earlier in the disease and gauge their efficacy more quickly. -- source link
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