ALZHEIMER’S disease is incurable, and only barely treatable. Drugs such as Aricept bring temporary relief, but nothing halts its onward march. There was therefore a lot of excitement, among researchers and journalists alike, in the lead-up to a lecture given on July 22nd at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, in Washington, DC. The talk was entitled “Delayed Start Studies in the Assessment of Potential Disease Modifying Effect”. Translated into English, that meant the researchers presenting the paper, who work for Eli Lilly, a big pharmaceutical company, thought they had come up with something which slows down the illness’s progression.
Their something is an antibody, called solanezumab by its inventors, that sticks to beta amyloid. This is one of the proteins which contribute to the plaques and tangles of matter in the brain that are characteristic of the disease. The researchers hoped, when they began the study, that solanezumab might slow down plaque formation and give a patient extra years of lucidity.
When Lilly tested the drug in 2012, they found little evidence of success—except in those with mild, early...
from The Economist: Science and technology http://ift.tt/1IjQmiO
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