A new drug is hailed as a “tipping point” in the fight against Alzheimer’s after it was found to slow the progression of the disease.
Donanemab was found to slow “clinical decline” by up to 35 percent, meaning people with the disease can still perform everyday tasks. Alzheimer’s Research UK, a charity focused on this disease, said: “We are entering a new era in which Alzheimer’s disease could become treatable.” He said drugs like this one will one day mean the condition could be compared to other long-term ailments, such as asthma or diabetes.
The organization said that new treatments, including donanemab, which works by removing a protein called amyloid that accumulates in the brains of patients, herald a “new era” for treatment of this disease, which affects millions of people worldwide. world.
The body, which focuses on controlling health spending in England, is assessing whether the drug, made by Eli Lill and Co, can be used in its public health system, backed by final results in terms of safety and efficacy.
The experts examined nearly 1,800 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s. Half received a monthly infusion of sonanemab and the other a placebo, for 18 months. The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, in Amsterdam, concluded that after 76 weeks of treatment, the drug slowed clinical decline by 35.1 percent in people with early Alzheimer’s whose brain scans showed low or medium levels of the protein. tau.
When the results from people who had different levels of this protein were combined, there was a 22.3 percent slowdown in disease progression.
It found that in nearly 47 percent of people who took the drug with early-stage disease and low or medium tau levels, the disease was arrested for a year.
The pharmacist explained that some people taking donanemab could finish the course of treatment in six months once the amyloid plaque is cleared. She said that therapy cut it by 84 percent on average at 18 months, compared with a 1 percent drop among those taking the placebo.
However, the researchers found that among a small number of people in the study there were some serious side effects, such as swelling of the brain.
The company added that it is ready to work with health regulators in the UK and on the “next appropriate regulatory steps”. The English National Institute for Excellence in Health and Care indicated that work on the evaluation of the drug has already begun. Mike Colley, who has been in the global donanemab trial for two years, told BBC News: “I’m one of the luckiest people you’ve ever met, just for this.”
“There is hope”
Colley, whose memory and ability to process information have still been affected by the disease, added: “I seem to be getting more confident every day and I’m sure this will succeed. I’m sure they’ll get all the junk out of my brain and I’ll be back to normal. I have a lot of confidence in that.” Her son, Mark, said: “I never thought I would see my father so full of life again. Now we have hope, a few years ago we didn’t and that’s an incredible difference.”
The drug must be approved by the Medicines and Health Products Regulatory Agency (of England), similar to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), where its approval is also sought. If this is achieved, it would be only the second Alzheimer’s treatment to be convincingly shown to slow the disease, after Japanese drugmaker Eisai’s ceptad, recently accepted by the FDA, as reported in the day on July 7.
Commenting on the results, Richard Oakley, Alzheimer’s Society associate director of research and innovation, said: “This is truly a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer’s disease and the science is showing that it can be stopped. Treatments like donanemab are the first steps toward a future in which cancer could be considered a long-term condition; people may have to live with it, but they may have treatments that allow them to effectively manage symptoms and go on to live fulfilling lives.”
He added that “just as we have seen a transformation in cancer treatment in the past decades, we are very hopeful that we are on the same path for dementia.”
Oakley also told BBC Breakfast: “In the past 12 months we have had two trials showing that (these drugs) remove amyloid protein from the brain effectively, and that it appears to slow the progression of the disease, as well as allowing people to They can do things like drive a car, manage finances, talk about current affairs, acknowledge family members longer. So we think it’s the start of a whole new era for Alzheimer’s.”
Susan Kohlhaas, executive director of research and partnerships at Alzheimer’s Research UK, noted that “the announcement marks another milestone.
“Thanks to decades of research, the perspective on dementia and its impact on individuals and society is changing, and we are entering a new era. As a potential first-generation treatment, the effects of Donanemab are modest, but these results provide further confirmation that removing amyloid from the brain can change the course of the disease and help those affected if they receive treatment at the right time.”
Sir John Hardy, Professor of Neuroscience and Group Leader at the UK Dementia Research Institute, added: “The successful result of Eli Lilly’s donanemab is great news and confirms the similarly positive result of Eisai’s lecanemab. The results are very similar, and that in itself is reassuring.” Donanemab, like Lecanemab, is administered intravenously and attacks amyloid plaques. The Eli Lilly treatment clinical trial was conducted in eight countries with more than 1,700 people between the ages of 60 and 85 who had not yet reached an advanced stage of the disease.
Former Prime Minister David Cameron, chairman of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said it was a real “breakthrough”.
Translation: Juan José Olivares
#drug #hailed #tipping #point #Alzheimers