In a significant step towards the development of a simple blood test for Alzheimer’s, scientists have found a set of biomarkers that can predict whether or not an individual would develop the neurodegenerative disease.
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In addition, the researchers said, the new findings “hint” that high doses of the drug may slow cognitive decline in patients with early stages of the memory-robbing disease.
Researchers indicate that the results of the Alzheimer’s disease breakthrough are profound and consistent across the board, even though the initial clinical trial was small in scope. The participants were split up into groups, and given different amounts of antibody over the period of a year.
“I am cautiously optimistic about this treatment, but trying not to get too excited because many drugs make it through this early stage of testing then go on to fail in larger trials”, she said.
In the double-blind, placebo-controlled Phase 1 trial, led by Biogen and the Swiss company Neurimmune, 165 patients were randomized into different groups and treated between October 2012 and January 2014 at 33 USA sites.
Such a high degree of amyloid-β clearing is unprecedented, study coauthor Stephen Salloway of Butler Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island, said during a press briefing. After one year of treatment, practically no beta-amyloid plaques could be detected in the patients who received the highest dose of the antibody.
“One year later, the images of the placebo group are basically unchanged”. These preliminary reports have suggested that the drug possess a remarkable ability to wipe out plaques from the brain.
When given to patients once a month for an entire year, the drug can eliminate the plaque buildup in the brain, allowing cellular processes and nerve cell communication to resume.
Despite some of the headlines that may speed around the internet today, there is still no cure for Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative brain disease that causes memory loss and dementia. The objective of the study was to test its safety in humans and not to detect benefits, but the findings were still very exciting to the medical community. The test, which was not designed for cerebral benefits, has improved the condition of patients who took the drug compared to those receiving a placebo.
“One day I could envisage treating people who have no symptoms because if you have amyloid in the brain it’s likely you’ll develop Alzheimer’s one day”.
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“We think we have something important here”, Biogen chief medical officer Dr. Alfred Sandrock said. Aducanumab is a human recombinant monoclonal antibody derived from a de-identified library of B cells collected from healthy elderly subjects with no signs of cognitive impairment or cognitively impaired elderly people with unusually slow cognitive decline, using Neurimmune’s proprietary Reverse Translational Medicine (RTM) technology platform. “It’s something the company is keenly aware of, that the Food and Drug Administration is keenly aware of, and the we just need to see if we can manage the risk”.
