What next for Alzheimer’s research after latest trial failure?

LONDON — Research on Alzheimer’s disease that afflicts an estimated 40m people worldwide has experienced a major setback when pharma company Biogen and its Japanese partner, Eisai announced that they are ending their phase three clinical trials for the drug aducanumab. They concluded that the drug had little chance of succeeding. It wiped almost a third off Biogen’s shares. The end of the trial was a blow for the theory by scientists that the symptoms of Alzheimer’s could be stopped if you manage to clear the build-up of amyloid plaques in ageing brains that destroy connections between nerve cells. And the conclusion at this point, has to be that we really do not know what is causing the disease and how to create an intervention with a pharmaceutical. The likely effect of the Biogen setback is that Big Pharma will retreat from research on Alzheimer’s disease for now, but hopefully this void will be filled by more government and public market funding. Trials are continuing at several universities who are looking at the possibility of using drugs already on the market for diabetes and inflammation, while there are other pharmaceutical companies looking at other approaches to tackle Alzheimer’s, but their research is at a very early stage. Bloomberg’s Carol Massar and Jason Kelly spoke to Senior Biotech Analyst, Asthika Goonewardene and Brian Skorney, Biotech and Pharma Analyst at Baird about the future of Biogen and whether it is time to abandon the amyloid plaque hypothesis. - Linda van Tilburg