Every month, a car would pick up Jeff Borghoff at his home in Forked River, New Jersey, and drive him to the Advanced Memory Research Institute of New Jersey. There, doctors would help him settle into a comfortable chair and hook him up to an IV.
The bad news was the companies developing aducanumab, Biogen and its partner Eisai, announced earlier that day that they halted two late-stage trials of the experimental drug after an independent group's analysis showed that the trials were unlikely to"meet their primary endpoint." Salim Syed, senior biotech analyst at Mizuho Securities who covers the stock, said Biogen's failure was a shock to many as the Alzheimer's treatment showed promise and followed the widely accepted theory that beta amyloid was responsible for the disease.
The FDA has approved four Alzheimer's drugs, all of which are aimed at helping symptoms, not actually reversing or slowing the disease itself. That's not to say people aren't trying. The National Institutes of Health alone expects to invest $1.46 billion on Alzheimer's research this year, almost three times the $562 million spent in 2014.
"She said, 'I'm sorry to tell you, Jeffrey has Alzheimer's. All the tests came back and he's early in the stages. Get your affairs in order,"' Kim recalls the doctor saying. Major drug companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, Eli Lilly and Merck have ended their attempts to treat Alzheimer's by targeting beta amyloid after failing to produce good results. In January, Swiss drugmaker Roche announced that it was ending two-late stage trials for Alzheimer's that also targeted beta amyloid. It's still testing another amyloid drug at a higher dose.
THC, the active compound in Marijuana, has been found to destroy an enzyme of Alzheimer's. Try what you know instead of experimenting with what you don't know.
Lots of trials fail unfortunately. But the researchers still learn