New Hope for Alzheimer’s Treatments

In a major announcement, the biggest U.S. drug makers will share the results of research into treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, hoping to speed progress on new treatments.

In recent years, effective new treatments for the disease have been illusive. A string of promising new drugs have failed in clinical trials. Now, major pharmaceutical manufacturers are pooling the results of their studies, hoping to identify new areas of fruitful research. Participating companies include Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, Abbott Labs and Sanofi-Aventis.

The initial data includes clinical trials on 4,000 Alzheimer’s patients who tested 11 different drugs, according to Marc Cantillon of CAMD, the Coalition Against Major Diseases The non-profit foundation co-sponsored the effort, along with the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Arizona Science Foundation under the aegis of the Critical Path Institute.

“Companies are running into a stone wall with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s,” says Ray Woosley, CEO of Critical Path. “We believe drugs are failing because we don’t understand the disease.”

By creating a larger database of research, companies hope to understand how the disease progresses. Identifying and understanding subgroups within the disease could lead to different treatments, just as Type I and Type II Diabetes are treated differently.

Additional data will soon be added by the National Institutes of Health and smaller companies. Similar programs already pool the research on new treatments for Parkinson’s disease and tuberculosis.

Even the pharmaceutical giants agree that this measure is necessary. Frank Casty, V.P. of Technical Developments at AstraZeneca, told the Wall Street Journal that innovation no longer occurs solely in one drug company’s laboratory. Instead, “constant interaction” between scientists, professors, patient advocates and federal agencies prompts innovation.

The FDA concurs. Deputy Joshua Sharfstein ahs aid that sharing information on a disease is a recognized way to accelerate development of safe and effective new drugs.

Some critics argue that this is simply a public relations ploy, particularly after a high-profile recall of children’s drugs manufactured by Johnson & Johnson. However, Sharfstein disagrees, noting that this collaboration has been in the works for some time. He notes the disappointing results of the Russian cold medication Dimebon as one of the failures that prompted this agreement.

By Joni Holderman, [email protected], contributing reporter for Mental Health News.