Study on Alzheimer’s drug
The name of the drug is aducanumab and it has been developed the American pharmaceutical company Biogen. A press release from the company last week claimed that early trials have been very promising.
“Treatment with aducanumab produced a dose-and-time-dependent reduction of amyloid plaque in the brain,” the press release said. “Amyloid plaque is believed to play a key role in the development of the symptoms of AD.”
The company acknowledged that their initial studies did not have a large test group, hence their aiming for a new and more ambitious phase of studies, expected to get underway by the end of 2015. The most significant study they’ve conducted on the drug to date had 166 patients with early to mild Alzheimer’s.
That study “showed that the larger the dosage of aducanumab administered, the extra pronounced the effect of beta amyloid removal.”
“Inside the 30-point mental acuity test the placebo group saw a 3.14 point decline over the course of a year compared to a decline of just .75 points and .58 points, respectively, for these getting the 3 mg and ten mg aducanumab dose.”
New treatment for Alzheimer’s?
Spokesperson Kate NIazo-Sai said if those numbers are repeated in the upcoming, larger study then they expect to gain approval to market the drug to patients of Alzheimer’s and other dementia.
“A lot of potential Alzheimer’s drugs never quite make it,” Niazo-Sai said. “But the results we have seen in a relatively small patient sample are very hopeful. If this was replicated in a further trial, then it could change the landscape for treatment of Alzheimer’s.”
According to Biogen their data on aducanumab showed “an acceptable safety and tolerability profile.” The pharmaceutical company presented data on the new drug last week at the ’12th International Conference on Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s Diseases and Related Neurological Disorders’ in Nice, France.
Over 36 million worldwide are believed to have the debilitating cognitive disease, five million in the U.S. alone.
