Hope for Alzheimer’s

Asignificant milestone in the struggle against Alzheimer’s disease may be on the horizon. The new drug, Donanemab, manufactured by Eli Lilly, has shown the ability to slow the progression of the disease by up to 35 per cent. The results of the clinical trial look highly promising. The drug works by breaking down amyloid plaques so that they can be cleared away, with half of participants seeing a complete halt in mental decline. Those in later stages of the disease also saw a slowing of its progression.

It would be premature to declare the end of the disease. Donamemab is still experimental, and several participants suffered serious side effects. But the arrival of treatments with working mechanisms for slowing the damage caused by Alzheimer’s is nevertheless an important victory. After decades without progress, with carers forced to watch helplessly as their loved ones suffered a slow decline, there are now multiple promising candidates for treatment.

As Dr Cath Mummery of the Cognitive Disorders Clinic at UCLH puts it, we are “entering the treatment era” for Alzheimer’s, where we might “realistically hope to treat and maintain” patients rather than offer them palliative care.

If this technology does indeed succeed, the challenge will be to ensure that our healthcare systems keep up. Drugs slowing progression are most effective when given early, so it would be incumbent on the NHS to provide the timely delivery of treatments to patients. Regulators should also be encouraged to facilitate and approve successful candidates as efficiently as possible. It would be a terrible shame for bureaucratic rigidity to obstruct a potential medical revolution.