This Wall Street Journal ($) article reports on a significant advancement for the next generation of Alzheimer’s treatments, Neurochem Inc says it will begin recruiting patients for a large efficacy trial of its drug Alzhemed in the next few weeks.
Unlike current drugs that generally treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, the new drugs target the underlying illness itself. The goal of these new these new medicines are to halt the devastating progression of the disease or prevent it entirely. Alchemed is at the cutting edge of the new medicines that offer hope to the 4.5 million Americans struck with the memory-robbing illness.
Alzhemed, which helps prevent the formation of the plaques many scientists believe are the culprit in Alzheimer’s disease, could be on the market within four years. The new study will enroll 950 patients over 18 months at 70 sites in the U.S. and Canada.
For a long time, Alzheimer’s research was a depressing area that simply was not producing any insights to a possible cure for the disease. That is changing, as the clinical trials described in this article appear quite promising.