Print“We are going with three different drugs, with three different mechanisms of action, to find out which works best”
The Alzheimer’s Association will support a long-term university-based study of two investigational Alzheimer’s drugs, one from Roche and the other from Eli Lily, with goal of seeing if the drugs can prevent symptoms of the disease from ever occurring.
The trial, weighing the ability of the drugs to prevent the loss of cognitive function in at-risk patients, will be run at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and is expected to begin in early 2013. It will test Roche’s mid-stage drug gantenerumab and Lilly’s late-stage drug solanezumab. A second drug from Lilly, beta-secretase inhibitor, is also being considered for inclusion in the trial.
The study will enroll 160 individuals with an inherited mutation that typically suggests they will develop Alzheimer’s at an early age, perhaps even as young as 30 years old, the university says.
All of the treatments have a unique approach to counter the toxic effects of amyloid beta, the main component of brain plaques whose accumulation has been linked to the development of Alzheimer’s.
“We are going with three different drugs, with three different mechanisms of action, to find out which works best,” says Dr. Randall Bateman, a neurologist at the Washington University School of Medicine who will lead the trial.
More than 5 million Americans have Alzheimer’s, which is the most common classified type of dementia, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. Global dementia cases are expected to double within the next 20 years according to the World Health Organization. The disease leads to progressive memory loss over the course of years, and eventually ends in death.
Roche and Lilly have also agreed to make their experimental drugs available at no cost to the investigators and will also help provide supporting grants for each drug to help make the trial possible.
Another drug under consideration for the trial was Pfizer’s and Johnson & Johnson’s drug bapineuzumab, but it did not make the final cut after data from two large trials failed to help patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s symptoms.
October 12, 2012
http://www.burrillreport.com/article-lilly_roche_drugs_chosen_for_alzheimer%e2%80%99s_trial.html
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