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A day after the pharmaceutical company Biogen announced promising results on an experimental drug against Alzheimer's disease, the experts were optimistic that researchers could turn the page after a year of dementia. failure.
Cambridge, based in Tokyo-based Biogen and Eisai Co., published this week data from a medical study that showed that their experimental drug, taken in high doses, eliminated a brain protein found in patients Alzheimer's and slowed down memory. people in the early stages of the disease.
But investors asked Thursday whether the drug, called BAN2401, had the potential to become a successful drug. The stock price of both pharmaceutical companies dropped after the details of the study were released Wednesday at the International Conference of Alzheimer's in Chicago
"The design and statistics were so complicated that It was difficult to interpret the clinical consequences of the treatment. Pierre Tariot, psychiatrist and director of Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix
The results of the drug trial were encouraging but were "not definitive by any means," Tariot said.
Patients who took the highest doses of medication twice a month via IV had the most significant reduction of beta-amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brain of patients with the disease d & # 39; Alzheimer's. These patients treated with the highest doses showed a 30% reduction in "clinical decline" on the basis of a test compared to people who received a placebo.
However, these results concerned patients who received 18 months of treatment, a secondary measure however, Tariot said the study was a "boost for the field" because it was the second Alzheimer's drug that has linked beta-amyloid reduction and mental decline. The other drug, aducanumab, also developed by Biogen, is tested in subsequent clinical trials.
Pharmaceutical companies have invested billions of dollars in stranded drugs targeting amyloid, which would be responsible for the accumulation of disease in the brain and disrupt communication between brain cells and kill them .
But drugs that target amyloid have failed to slow down mental decline.
A series of clinical trial failures prompted many people to question whether pharmaceutical companies were on the right track. "People were ready to say that the theory of amyloid was dead," said Marwan Sabbagh, a geriatric neurologist and director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas. "That said strongly, with an exclamation point, that's not true."
Some believe that the key begins early, even before memory and thought problems appear.
Banner Alzheimer's Institute tests anti-amyloid drugs for people who face a high genetic risk but no symptoms. These studies – one involving an extended family in Colombia and a second involving healthy elderly people who present a high genetic risk of developing Alzheimer's disease – are testing drugs on patients before the memory and problems of thought do not occur.
anti-amyloid drug, crenezumab, on an extended family whose members carry a rare genetic mutation that ensures that they will have Alzheimer's disease, usually beginning in their mid-40s. [19659002] Preliminary data released by researchers this week show that more than 40% of Colombian family members had no signs of amyloid protein in the brain at the start of the study. Because of this, Tariot said that the study will test the very idea that a drug – if it is administered early enough – can prevent the onset of the disease.
"This will be the first trial" that tests this theory, he said. ] © 2018 USATODAY.COM
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