Drug Development for Psychotropic, Cognitive-Enhancing, and Disease-Modifying Treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease

What is it about?

There are few drugs approved specifically for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) or other neurodegenerative disorders. Drug development for AD takes approximately 8 years to progress from Phase 1 testing in healthy volunteers, to Phase 2 assessment in small trials of patients with AD, to larger Phase 3 trials. Most treatments for AD tested over the past decade have failed to show efficacy and none have been approved for marketing since 2003. There has been recent progress in treatment of neuropsychiatric disorders in AD including psychosis and sleep with promising treatments being tested for agitation and apathy. No disease modifying treatments have been approved for any neurodegenerative disorders; current trials suggests that removing amyloid from the brain in mildly affected patients may result in slowing of cognitive decline.

Featured Image