Drug donanemab seen as turning point in dementia fight

[libertybele]

When people die during the trials, I would think that should be a red-flag that they need to continue working on treatments and cures.

Drug donanemab seen as turning point in dementia fight

Results out today confirm that the drug donanemab, hailed as a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer's, slows cognitive decline by about a third.

Mike Colley, who is 80, is one of only a few dozen patients in the UK to take part in the global trial, now published in the journal JAMA.

He gets an infusion each month at a clinic in London and says he is "one of the luckiest people you'll ever meet".

The antibody treatment helps in the early stages of the disease.

It works in Alzheimer's disease, not in other types of dementia, such as vascular dementia.

That is because it is designed to clear away one of the key features of Alzheimer's disease - a substance called amyloid that builds up in the spaces between brain cells.

Mike and his family noticed he was having problems with memory and decision-making, not long before he started on the trial.

His son, Mark, said it was very hard to watch at the beginning: "Seeing him struggle with processing information and solving problems was very hard. But I think the decline is reaching a plateau now."

Speaking exclusively to the BBC, Mike, who is from Kent, said: "I feel more confident every day."

Donanemab, made by Eli Lilly, works in the same way as lecanemab - developed by companies Eisai and Biogen - which created headlines around the world when it was proven to slow the disease.

Although extremely promising, these drugs are not cures or risk-free treatments.

Brain swelling was a common side-effect in up to a third of patients in the donanemab trial. For most, this resolved without causing symptoms. However, two volunteers, and possibly a third, died as a result of dangerous swelling in the brain.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66221116

[Kamaji]

Groundbreaking Alzheimer’s drug slows disease: A ‘new era’ for treatment

By Marc Lallanilla
July 17, 2023

In the battle against Alzheimer’s disease, experts are excited about a new weapon.

A drug called donanemab, developed by Eli Lilly, had a successful clinical trial and is expected to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration this fall.

People who took donanemab had a 40% lower risk of progressing from mild cognitive impairment to mild dementia, or from mild to moderate dementia.

If approved, donanemab would be the third Alzheimer’s drug to enter the market in recent months, following Leqembi and Aduhelm.

This is “just the opening chapter in a new era of molecular therapies for Alzheimer’s disease,” Dr. Gil Rabinovici, director of the University of California San Francisco’s Memory and Aging Center, wrote in an editorial for JAMA.

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Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/07/17/alzheimers-drug-donanemab-lowers-risk-of-dementia/