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New Alzheimer's drug trials give researchers and Austin Seniors optimism

August 26, 2018

News for Austin Seniors worried about Alzheimer's

Alzheimer’s Specialists says “Move early and be very aggressive”

Karen Weintraub, USA TODAY says “No effective treatment for Alzheimer's is yet in sight, but better diagnostics, deeper scientific understanding and encouraging drug trials are leading to a positive mood.

 A professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School finds the data from a drug trial where the “drug seems to have removed a protein called amyloid, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s. All previous trials attacking amyloid, including some costing hundreds of millions of dollars, have failed in patients. The new study suggests it’s because they were given too little, too late.”

“You’re going to have to move early and be very aggressive,” said Reisa Sperling, who directs the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

Much optimism surrounds a drug trial that will report more details at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in coming years.

In small trials, a drug seems to have removed a protein called amyloid, the hallmark of Alzheimer’s. All previous trials attacking amyloid, including some costing hundreds of millions of dollars, have failed in patients. The new study suggests it’s because they were given too little, too late.

Eighteen months after they began taking the experimental drug – called BAN2401 –patients who received the highest dose saw a dramatic drop in the amyloid in their brains as well as signs that disease progression had slowed, according to Biogen, which is developing the drug along with Japanese company Eisai. Detailed results and more recent findings are expected to be presented at the conference.

“I’ve seen the data and I find them very encouraging for a change,” said Sperling, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School….”

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