The quest to find a viable treatment for Alzheimer’s disease suffered another setback this week.
Roche Holding and its development partner, AC Immune, announced that they are dropping a phase 3 trial into a drug called crenezumab that was being developed to target early Alzheimer’s. The companies made the decision after an analysis of the trial showed that the treatment was not effective.
The announcement is just one of about 100 failed trials for experimental Alzheimer’s drugs.
The failure of crenezumab, an amyloid-targeting antibody, is a blow to the hypothesis that blocking the formation of amyloid plaques on the brain will slow cognitive decline. But Roche said it will continue an ongoing clinical study of crenezumab on healthy patients with a genetic predisposition to Alzheimer’s.
AC Immune, which discovered crenezumab, is also investigating a class of anti-tau treatments that target the accumulation of hyperphosphorylated tau, which has been linked to cognitive decline.
Read the full Reuters report.