Results from Roche’s Anti-Amyloid Drug Trial Reinforce Importance of ADDF-Driven Biology of Aging Approach

Roche reported on June 16, 2022 that its anti-amyloid drug, crenezumab, did not prevent progression to dementia in cognitively healthy people at genetically high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease.

But every well conducted clinical trial, even when the results are not what we hoped for, provides useful information that moves Alzheimer’s research forward. These data are likely to inform the design and approach for future prevention trials.

In the meantime, additional amyloid-targeting drugs are pressing ahead in the hopes that they will have more convincing data from their phase 3 clinical trials. But whatever the results of the ongoing amyloid trials, the unquestionable reason for optimism lies in our robust clinical trial pipeline where amyloid-targeting medicines now make up less than a quarter of drugs in development.

“As I wrote recently in my STAT First Opinion, anti-amyloid drugs will at best be one part of the puzzle. The complexity of Alzheimer’s and the biology of our aging brains points towards a set of causes, not a single cause, of this disease,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF). “We need drugs that work on all of the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s and diagnostic biomarkers that can pinpoint the cause of each patient’s disease so we can tailor combinations that work for each individual.”

The worldwide Alzheimer’s research community is working together like never before to make this happen. At this pivotal moment, the ADDF is leading the charge to provide not just funding, but also leadership to encourage academia, industry, regulatory agencies, patient advocates and venture philanthropists to work together to accelerate our progress.