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Drug trial for Alzheimer’s disease is a game changer

An antibody treatment reduces measurements of brain abnormalities called amyloid plaques in people with Alzheimer’s disease, and lessens clinical decline. This result will help in developing therapies to treat and prevent the disease.
  1. Eric M. Reiman

    1. Eric M. Reiman is at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, Phoenix, Arizona 85006, USA.

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Researchers have long sought a treatment for Alzheimer’s disease that could target the biological underpinnings of the condition and slow cognitive decline and its disabling consequences in definitive clinical trials. Writing in the New England Journal of Medicine, van Dyck et al.1 provide compelling evidence that an antibody treatment called lecanemab can drastically reduce measurements of a characteristic Alzheimer’s brain abnormality called amyloid plaques, alter other biomarkers of the disease and reduce the clinical decline in people with the condition. Although lecanemab did not stop clinical decline completely, the trial results promise to have a profound effect on Alzheimer’s research, patient care and the successful development of therapies that could modify or even prevent the disease.

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Nature 615, 42-43 (2023)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-00393-7

References

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Competing Interests

E.M.R. is an uncompensated scientific adviser to Biogen and Lilly.

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