How Biogen ’s Discontinued Alzheimer’s Drug Got A Second Life

“My first reaction was to be angry,” says JoAnn Wooding. “I’ve gotten over that, and frustration is more the word right now.” Wooding’s husband, Peter, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2016, was among the more than 3,200 people with the disease who volunteered to test a promising drug called aducanumab. Made by Biogen, a U.S. biotech company, and Eisai, a Japanese pharmaceutical manufacturer, the drug seemed, in early studies released the same year, to be the first to both shrink deposits of the protein amyloid accumulating in the brains of patients with Alzheimer’s, and to slow the cognitive decline resulting from their buildup. The study in which Peter was participating was one of two trials designed to confirm that early promise, and, patients and doctors hoped, lead to the first approved treatment that could actually halt the neurodegenerative disease. But last March, Biogen, after an early review of its data involving half of the patients, decided that the results were not promising enough to continue the trial, and terminated it. Peter and the other volunteers stopped taking the experimental drug and the company began an in-depth analysis of the data it had collected so far. Its full report, which included all 3,285 patients, revealed a rosier picture. After 18 months of taking aducanumab, participants in one of the studies showed anywhere from 15% to 27% less cognitive decline, as measured by standard tests of memor...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Alzheimer's alzheimer's drugs Brain HealthSummit19 Source Type: news