Details of these so-called biomarker findings were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association worldwide Conference (AAIC) in Washington earlier on Wednesday.
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Since its inception and perception of its severity, researchers and doctors have been trying to find a way to slow down the disease because curing it still seems like a long shot.
Selkoe argues that the new Biogen data still suggest that other approaches to reducing amyloid, such as drugs that block the production and transport of molecules that contribute to amyloid buildup as well as vaccines that prime the immune system to break down plaques, should be “vigorously” pursued. Researchers announced that the patients who took the investigational compound at an earlier stage of disease progression fared better when it came to cognitive decline compared to patients who began taking it later in the trial.
Aducanumab is an antibody that is thought to bind to sticky clumps of the protein amyloid, one of the hallmarks of the disease, in the brain and causes cells to digest away the plaque and reduce amyloid, said Alfred Sandrock, Biogen’s chief medical officer.
“After a decade of no new therapies for dementia, today’s news is an exciting step forward”, he said.
Solanezumab, once one of Lilly’s most promising drugs in development, was on the ropes three years ago when initial late-phase studies failed to show efficacy in Alzheimer’s patients in all stages of the disease.
Trial results released Wednesday on two experimental drugs didn’t deliver a definitive answer as to whether the medications will work.
A total of 1,024 patients with an average age of 73 took part in the solanezumab investigation. The researchers went back, however, and sifted the data in a “secondary analysis”.
Studies in 2012 of the two drugs found it ineffective.
If both those drugs succeed and hit the market quickly, Risinger said, Lilly’s stock price could rocket up to $122 per share.
To test this, Eli Lilly switched the half of the 1,300 patients who had been on the placebo on to the drug as well and the entire group was given solanezumab for a further two years.
“Current treatments only help with symptoms”.
Peter Roberts, emeritus professor of pharmacology at the University of Bristol, lamented early media reports that hyped the findings.
“I’m very pleased with the result”, said Sevigny, who presented the data.
Dementia, of which Alzheimer’s is the most common form, affects close to 50 million people worldwide, a total set to reach 135 million by 2050, according to non-profit campaign group Alzheimer’s Disease global.
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“The cognitive benefits are not astounding and are actually little or no better than the now prescribed anticholinesterases”. “I am cautiously optimistic, from the perspective of the audience, they should be too”, he said. But the developers kept studying it, trying to see if it maybe offered a small benefit when given to people early. “And that matters”. In a paper on the delayed-start trial, the Eli Lilly team said: “These results are consistent with a potential disease-modifying effect of solanezumab on underlying disease progression”. The drug’s benefit in mild Alzheimer’s disease was modest, and in prior trials its effect on patients with moderate cases of Alzheimer’s disease were statistically insignificant.
