24 Jan Alzheimer’s: Two Phase 3 Trials of Bapineuzumab in Mild-to-Moderate Disease

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Stephen Salloway, MD, MS
Director of Neurology and the Memory and Aging Program, Butler Hospital
Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry
Warren Alpert Medical School Brown University

MedicalResearch.com: What are the main findings of this study?

Dr. Salloway:  With the aging of the population, the G-8 and the US Congress have made finding new treatments for Alzheimer’s disease by 2025 a top priority.

These were the first large anti-amyloid monoclonal antibody trials. While the clinical outcomes were disappointing, we learned important new information that is already guiding new trials. These include:

• Treating Alzheimer’s disease earlier, when amyloid plays its most critical role and brain injury is not well established.
• Using amyloid biomarkers to focus treatment only on those with amyloid pathology.
• Combining treatments as we do in cancer, HIV, and heart disease to maximize benefit, and
• Finding medications that can safely reduce amyloid burden to a greater extent:

Citation:

Two Phase 3 Trials of Bapineuzumab in Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

Rachelle S. Doody, M.D., Ph.D., Ronald G. Thomas, Ph.D., Martin Farlow, M.D., Takeshi Iwatsubo, M.D., Ph.D., Bruno Vellas, M.D., Steven Joffe, M.D., M.P.H., Karl Kieburtz, M.D., M.P.H., Rema Raman, Ph.D., Xiaoying Sun, M.S., Paul S. Aisen, M.D., Eric Siemers, M.D., Hong Liu-Seifert, Ph.D., and Richard Mohs, Ph.D. for the Alzheimer’s Disease Cooperative Study Steering Committee and the Solanezumab Study Group

N Engl J Med 2014; 370:311-321
January 23, 2014
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1312889

Last Updated on January 24, 2014 by Marie Benz MD FAAD