Data shows drug slowing Alzheimer’s but doubts over effect remain

NEW YORK: Experts have welcomed full data showing an experimental drug can slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients, but warned improvements were comparatively small and said it remained unclear how much difference it might make in people’s lives. Japanese drugmaker Eisai and its United States partner Biogen had announced in September that preliminary data from a trial of lecanemab found it slowed cognitive decline by 27 percent across an 18-month period. The companies on Tuesday provided the full results of the study on nearly 1,800 people in the earliest stages of the disease, the most common cause of dementia among older adults. Every two weeks for 18 months, study participants received intravenous lecanemab or a placebo. Researchers tracked them using an 18-point scale that measures cognitive and functional ability. Those given lecanemab declined more slowly – a difference of not quite half a point on that scale, concluded the research team led by Christopher van Dyck at Yale University. That is a hard-to-understand change, but measured a different way, lecanemab delayed patients’ worsening by about five months over the course of the study, Eisai’s Dr Michael Irizarry told The Associated Press (AP) news agency. Also, lecanemab recipients were 31 percent less likely to advance to the next stage of the disease during the study.

“THAT translates to more time in earlier stages” when people function better, Irizarry said.