Advances In Alzheimer Treatments

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Browsing through email announcements the other day, one caught my eye:

"Researcher's herald breakthrough data on Alzheimer's."

The article, on the website FierceBiotech, announced that Singapore-based TauRX Therapeutics had just released what appeared to be spectacular data from Phase II clinical trials for their Alzheimer's drug, called Rember.

"Researchers say that Rember slowed cognitive decline in 81 percent of the patients taking the drug," the article said.

If true, this was sensational news for the more than 24 million people who suffer from Alzheimer's disease; currently, there is no effective treatment, and the number of people afflicted by it is forecast to double every 20 years, reaching 80 million by 2040.

Success might also mean a break from rising costs connected to treating Alzheimer's, which is projected to cost Medicare $189 billion in 2015.

I read on, learning that Rember acts by detangling a protein in the brain called Tau that bunches up as the disease progresses. It's one of about 30 new medicines being tested right now to treat Alzheimer's. Other drugs work to prevent a build-up of plaques in the brain called amyloids.

Another promising family of drugs works to boost nicotinic receptors in the brain that help regulate memory and cognition. (See Condé Nast Portfolio feature "The Ultimate Cure.")

The TauRX announcement came at a major international Alzheimer's meeting last month in Chicago, where most of the news was not so great. At this gathering, Myriad Genetics provided the unfortunate details of its failed anti-amyloid drug, Flurizan, which the company was forced to abandon in June when it failed to work in clinical trials.

The mood at the meeting was also darkened by a presentation from Elan Pharmaceutical and Wyeth that offered up confusing data about Bapineuzumab, another promising plaque-busting drug that looked as if it, too, might have failed in Phase II trials.

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