10th CTAD: Finally, Alzheimer’s Field Is Serious About Prevention Trials At CTAD, Tau PET Emerges as Favored Outcome Biomarker for Trials Automated CSF Tests: Check. Blood Tests: In the Works Cognitive Testing Is Getting Faster and Better Don’t Be an Enro
Alzheimer’s science has undergone a paradigm shift toward the disease’s silent phase. For trials, this means change at every level: new participants, new screening tools, new outcome measurements. What’s the progress?
Tau’s apparent lockstep with cognitive decline dominated the PET conversation. Piramal flaunted data, and Merck/Cerveau are close behind. A first stab at imaging synapses in the hippocampus drew notice, too.
Who doesn’t dread hours of testing at a clinic? Innovation needed! Learn about frequent “burst” testing via mobile app, and a digital pen that captures more information than the old paper-and-pencil test.
Presented at CTAD, BACE inhibitor’s efficacy and safety results in mild to moderate AD were encouraging to some clinicians, vaguely disquieting to others.
Ephemeral as they may be, these maligned peptides have become the targets of small-molecule and immunotherapies. Initial results of these efforts to catch and remove Aβ oligomers are trickling in.
Besides the big-gun antibodies and BACE inhibitors, smaller, lesser-known drug programs are inching their way through the clinical trials pipeline. As is often the case, Phase 1 seems encouraging.
Null results ended the development of the neuroprotective drugs edonerpic and abeotaxane, the AMPA receptor modulator S47445, and the dietary formulation tricaprilin.