Why is the New York Times Writing so Much about Alzheimer's Disease Therapies?

Abstract

Can we go back to proving that drugs work in preventing, postponing, and ameliorating familial Alzheimer's disease (ad)? Ad is so devastating that there is a great public interest in the drug discovery process as evinced by the sheer number of articles in the serious popular press. The presently available, yet poorly performing, drugs have been approved despite their multiple peripheral side effects. The research on disease-modifying agents for the treatment of ad is largely focused on reducing amyloid plaques. However, it is now clear that companies and researchers alike are losing hope in finding an efficacious therapy rapidly that works in ad patients who are already cognitively impaired, and that people who staked their scientific and professional career on finding a cure for ad based on the amyloid hypothesis are shaken by the series of failed clinical trials within a short period of time. It is emerging that we may start to treat ad far too late to be able to make any significant slowing of the disease or postponing the onset of the symptoms of the disease. The history of drug development for other diseases should encourage us to focus on patients in whom we can identify the genetic markers associated with familial ad. Then when we have an efficacious and very safe drug, we will be able to establish its efficacy on, most importantly, cognition, but also at the level of plaques. This will provide the pharmacological evidence needed to show that it is worth fighting amyloidosis because it saves memory. We have a successful and lucrative history of preventive medicine on a large scale, all we need now is the foresight and will to switch strategy and no longer look for a magic bullet to fix ad, but to discover drugs that will delay and prevent the onset of ad, drugs that may be safely taken by symptom-free patients who are vulnerable and susceptible to ad. The initial population that might be preventatively treated against ad would indeed be those with genetic predisposition. While prevention trials are long and expensive as emphasized by the industry, the market for a safe and effective drug would be extended to the large number of patients susceptible to sporadic ad. Since the highest risk factor for sporadic ad is age, this would be an extraordinarily large market.