The Alzheimer’s drug that has occupied the world … by restricting it to these cases only

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced, under pressure, to change its recommendations for the use of a new drug against Alzheimer’s disease that it had authorized only a month ago.

The agency has limited its use to people with moderate cases of the disease and not to others, according to what was reported by “AFP”.

A spokesperson for the “FDA” said, “Since the Food and Drug Agency approved Edward, this has caused some confusion … regarding the target group for this treatment.”

While he added that the agency “considered after examining these concerns that it is possible to provide clarification.”

‘moderate dementia’

In this sense, a precision was included in the recommendations of the agency indicating that “this treatment should be administered to patients with moderate cognitive impairment or at the stage of moderate dementia”.

The American agency indicated that clinical trials have already been carried out on this category of patients.

Alzheimer’s patient (Reuters)

It also stated that physicians should “weigh the potential benefit” of continued treatment in each case for patients who receive it but who gradually slip into a more advanced stage of the disease, as it is characterized by a gradual loss of memory and certain cognitive disorders. the functions.

This drug, called “Adohelm” and produced by the company “Biogene” for the pharmaceutical industries, is the first treatment against Alzheimer’s disease approved since 2003, but allowing it according to an accelerated mechanism has aroused reactions in the scientific community.

Expert opinion outdated

The agency had taken the decision to authorize the drug, bypassing the opinion of an expert committee, which rarely happens, since the committee announced in November that it did not support the authorization of this treatment in on the grounds that its effectiveness had not been sufficiently proven.

A number of members of this committee have also resigned to express their protest against the authorization of the drug, according to US media.

The medicine uses a molecule called “adokanumab”, which is a monoclonal antibody, and is taken once every four weeks by intravenous injection.

It should be noted that approximately six million Americans suffer from Alzheimer’s disease, which is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States.

However, treatment studies have seen successive setbacks in recent years, and no treatment has cured Alzheimer’s patients until today.

This is why patients and their families see in this treatment a silver lining, because the effect of the treatments authorized before was limited to treating the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease and not the cause of this disease.

As for the “Biogen” treatment, it works to damage the plaques formed by proteins in the brain of patients called “amyloid”. These proteins are a major cause of Alzheimer’s disease by compressing nerve cells, leading to progressive loss of memory and even the ability to distinguish.