“Latest Alzheimer’s Flop Raises Doubts About ‘Amyloid Hypothesis’,” by Arlene Weintraub, Forbes

“Even after Eli Lilly announced that its experimental Alzheimer’s drug solanezumab had failed in clinical trials in late 2016, it continued investigating its potential in patients at the very earliest stages of the memory-stealing disease. The hope was that if the drug could eliminate soluble amyloid-beta—the protein blamed for the brain plaques that form in patients—Alzheimer’s progression might be stopped, or at least slowed significantly.

“That hope has now been dashed. New data from a trial called Expedition3, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, does not validate findings from earlier trials that indicated the drug might produce a modest slowdown in cognitive decline. There were 2,129 patients in this trial, all of whom had mild dementia due to Alzheimer’s, and about half received the drug every four weeks for 18 months. When their cognitive abilities were measured using a 14-part test, there was no significant difference between their performance at week 80 and that of patients given a placebo.

“Meanwhile, nascent efforts to look beyond amyloid for answers to Alzheimer’s are starting to gain traction—and some big-name investors. In November, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced a $50 million investment in the Dementia Discovery Fund, which is seeding several companies pursuing different ideas for repairing brain disorders. They range from developing immunotherapy-based treatments to targeting the energy centers inside the body’s cells.”

LTC Comment (from Damon V. Moses, President, Administrative Coordinator):

Discouraging news. On a more optimistic note, see also this article in The Wall Street Journal.

Latest Alzheimer’s Flop Raises Doubts About ‘Amyloid Hypothesis’

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