After a clinical trial showed that it reduces the progression of cognitive deterioration in people with early stages of the disease, the experimental medicine ‘lecanemab’ is being hailed as a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s therapy.
However, a thorough analysis of the data revealed on Tuesday that some patients who took the medication experienced major adverse effects, which is now the topic of concern.
The research was presented at the Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease symposium on Tuesday in San Francisco after being published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
This comes nearly two months after the Japan-based, Eisai and American company Biogen, the developers of lecanemab said it showed huge potential and slowed down cognitive and functional decline by almost 27 per cent over 18 months.
Nearly 18,000 people with early-stage Alzheimer’s participated in the testing of the medication. Phase 2, which lasted for a year, did not reveal any appreciable difference between patients receiving lecanemab versus a placebo, and it wasn’t until Phase 3 that a slowed-down progression was not observed.
Lecanemab is described as an antibody therapy that eliminates beta-amyloid, which are protein clumps that accumulate in the brain.
Although it is unknown how much of this accumulation causes Alzheimer’s in patients, it does show how the brain alters as a result and ultimately kills brain cells.
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