Eli Lilly’s new antibody drug Donanemab has shown preliminary results in clinical research. But there are also strong side effects.
The suffix of the new drug, dorizumab, indicates the type of drug: MAB stands for monoclonal antibody. The drug always targets a specific target, such as a protein.
In this case, the target is called amyloid-beta, or Aβ for short. This is a protein that deposits in the brain and blood vessels of people with Alzheimer’s disease. The idea with antibody drugs, on the other hand, is that if you can stop Aβ from accumulating in the brain, you can also slow the progression of the disease.
has hope result
In fact, donanemab appears to do just that. In a clinical study of more than 1,700 participants, those who received the drug experienced about a 35 percent reduction in cognitive impairment compared with a placebo group. In nearly half (47%) of the patients, the disease stopped progressing within a year.
Patients who received the drug also had about 40 percent less impairment in activities of daily living. Aβ deposits in the brain were completely cleared after one year in more than half of the people, and in nearly three-quarters after the following six months.
strong side effects
Experts say the results are encouraging and superior to previous research. But donanemab isn’t a panacea, either. It appears to slow the progression of the disease, but the drug also doesn’t stop or even cure Alzheimer’s.
In addition, unlike other antibody drugs, donanemab has relatively strong side effects. Severe brain swelling or hemorrhage occurred in more than 1.5% of subjects. Two people were even killed, possibly three.
“The correct way”
Linda Thienpont, scientific director of the Alzheimer’s Disease Research Program, told the German Science Media Center: “Unfortunately, donanemab is not a game-changer for those affected either, but it may be a step in the right direction. step.”
Christian Haass, Head of the Department of Neurodegenerative Diseases at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich, commented on the results as follows: “The results of the press release on doranumab look very good. Slow anti-Aβ antibody memory loss. Of course, there is much room for improvement in terms of side effects and more effective treatments, but amyloid reduction is certainly the right way to at least slow the disease.” Ultimately it should be clear that amyloid The protein hypothesis “is no longer a hypothesis, but a fact”.
What Other Companies Are Following
So far, the data released by Eli Lilly and Company have only been published in press releases and not in publications that have been checked by experts. But they show that releasing Aβ deposits is at least a partially promising treatment, perhaps also as part of a combination therapy.
Other companies, such as Dutch drugmaker Vivoryon, are working on drugs that work in a similar way. Clinical trial results are expected this year or next.