Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Alzheimer antibody drugs show questionable potential

Nature Reviews Drug Discovery volume 14, pages 591–592 (2015)Cite this article

Subjects

A Corrigendum to this article was published on 05 October 2015

This article has been updated

Amyloid-targeted antibodies seem to have a small clinical benefit in patients with mild Alzheimer disease, but concerns about the design and interpretation of the trials curb enthusiasm.

So expectations were high for the results of EXPEDITION-EXT, the 1,322-patient 2-year extension phase of Lilly's trials, which were presented in July at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference (AAIC) in Washington DC, USA. Although Lilly claimed that solanezumab slowed disease progression, the effect on cognitive decline was minor, and researchers are curbing their enthusiasm until the results of a larger ongoing study of the antibody are released next year. Some clinicians are also questioning the utility of the unusual 'delayed-start' design.

This is a preview of subscription content

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Figure 1: EXPEDITION-EXT results.

Change history

  • 05 October 2015

    The description of the reanalysis of the EXPEDITION 1, 2 and EXT trials of solanezumab on p592 was inaccurate, and it is the last patient visit for the EXPEDITION 3 trial that is due in October 2016, not the final results. Changes have been made to correct these errors in the online version of the article.

Authors
  1. Sara Reardon
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

PowerPoint slides

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Reardon, S. Alzheimer antibody drugs show questionable potential. Nat Rev Drug Discov 14, 591–592 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4709

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nrd4709

Further reading

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing