Editorial: Ray of hope

A new drug in the development stage is now offering hope for millions of patients suffering from the debilitating Alzheimer’s

Like some forms of cancer, Alzheimer’s, a progressively degenerative neurological disorder, has been evading a cure. For decades, neurologists have had nothing but palliative care to offer as the grey matter covering the brain degenerates progressively in patients with Alzheimer’s disease, a form of dementia. Not only have several therapies for Alzheimer’s failed to achieve results over the years, there is still no consensus among scientists on what causes the disease. However, a new drug in the development stage is now offering hope for millions of patients suffering from the debilitating disease. Being developed by two pharma research companies — Eisai and Biogen —the new drug ‘Lecanemab’ has, during the advanced clinical trials, shown reduced cognitive decline in patients with early Alzheimer’s, promising to become one of the first neuroprotective therapies for the disease. This is probably the very first drug that has been claimed to slow the progression of the disease. At present, the treatment for Alzheimer’s is mainly symptomatic. There are a few pills that improve memory in the early stages but they do not help in the other facets of Alzheimer’s. There is certainly a need for such neuroprotective drugs for dementia. In India, it is estimated that there are 5.3 million people over the age of 60 years living with dementia, with the prevalence projected to increase to 14 million by 2050. More than 50 million people have Alzheimer’s worldwide. In the last two decades, mortality caused by the disease has shot up by more than 120%. The failure rate of drugs to combat this disease is 99.6%, making it one of the most challenging healthcare issues.

What the new drug Lecanemab attempts to do is that it cleans protein deposits on brain cells, believed to cause cognitive impairments. The clumps of the protein ‘beta-amyloid’ accumulate in toxic proportions as the disease progresses. It has emerged that the new drug slowed down the rate of memory and thinking decline in early-stage Alzheimer’s patients by 27%. This might seem a modest rate but this is the first time a drug has shown the potential to slow down the onset of dementia. Last year, another anti-amyloid drug developed by Biogen failed after being approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. Not only did Lecanemab clear the amyloid build-up in the brain cells of participants in the 18-month long clinical trial, it also demonstrated a significant effect on their cognitive functions. Drugs such as this or many others under development may not do much for those who already have full-blown Alzheimer’s but such drugs may reduce the incidence in the future. In many parts of the world, dementia is seen as a fallout of the ageing process and people do not seek medical care. But research has shown that in a large number of cases, the illness begins in the mid to late forties.

---