Trial First to Show Improvements in Alzheimer's Patients
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BURLINGAME, Calif., May 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Pharmaceutical trials for Alzheimer's have failed repeatedly, but a new study, using a fundamentally different approach, has provided the first success: using precision medicine to identify and target the drivers of Alzheimer's or pre-Alzheimer's in each patient, a team of physicians and researchers has posted exciting, positive results in medRxiv, the Yale-backed site for health sciences.
(PRNewsfoto/Apollo Health)
(PRNewsfoto/Apollo Health)
Until now, therapeutic development for Alzheimer's disease has been almost uniformly unsuccessful, with over 400 failed clinical trials. The few "successes" (e.g., memantine) have not offered sustained improvement. For example, the recent claim of a positive trial for the drug candidate donanemab did not show cognitive improvement, nor even stabilization of dementia, but merely reduced the rate of progression by about one-third. Arguably, the greatest failure of medical treatments to date is in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's disease; about 45 million Americans are projected to die from Alzheimer's if effective treatment and prevention are not developed.