People who die of severe COVID-19 have brain abnormalities that resemble changes seen in Alzheimer’s disease – accumulation of a protein called tau inside brain cells, and abnormal amounts of the protein beta-amyloid that accumulates into amyloid plaques – small studies found. In other news, seniors can safely get the high-dose flu vaccine and an mRNA COVID-19 booster dose at the same time, a new study confirms.
Scientists believe that Alzheimer’s disease is a potential cause of not just beta-amyloid accumulation, but also immune system dysfunction.
AC Immune and Genentech announced that their Phase II Lauriet trial of semorinemab in mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease hit one of the study’s co-primary endpoints.
Eli Lilly and Co. on March 14 said the company’s experimental Alzheimer’s drug slowed the rate of decline in a measure of cognition and function by 32 percent compared with a placebo in a mid-stage trial of patients at an early stage of the mind wasting disease.
Switzerland-based AC Immune SA announced positive interim results from the company’s ongoing Phase Ib/IIa clinical trial of ACI-35.030 for Alzheimer’s disease.
A small trial of Eli Lilly’s donanemab showed the experimental Alzheimer’s drug slowed by about a third the rate of decline in a combined measure of cognition and function in patients at an early stage of the mind-wasting disease.
Framingham, Massachusetts-based Alzheon was awarded a $47 million grant over five years from the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, to assist with a Phase III clinical trial of ALZ-801.
A specially designed clinical study that was the first disease prevention trial to study Alzheimer’s disease drugs with different mechanisms of action from two different pharmaceutical companies failed to hit the primary endpoint.
Carlsbad, California-based Ionis Pharmaceuticals licensed the company’s IONIS-MAPTRX antisense therapy to leading biotech firm Biogen Inc.
Researchers at Temple University Health System have shown that a type of energy malfunction, called mitochondrial calcium transport remodeling, is involved in the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.