New Alzheimer's Drug Shows Promise

An anonymous reader writes "The Herald Sun is reporting that researchers may have some progress to report on the Alzheimer's front. A new drug, called PBT2, was developed by a Melbourne-based biotech firm that has been showing some promising results. From the article: 'Early clinical testing has confirmed the drug is fast-acting. Levels of amyloid dropped by 60 per cent within 24 hours of a single dose. It found also that PBT2 suppresses the impairment of memory function. More human studies begin in Sweden next month and Australians will join a major international trial of the drug next year.'"

animal data not clinical trials?

[simong_oz]

From the article: 'Early clinical testing has confirmed the drug is fast-acting. Levels of amyloid dropped by 60 per cent within 24 hours of a single dose. It found also that PBT2 suppresses the impairment of memory function.

The article seems to be wrong - press releases on the Prana Biotechnology website indicate these results are from studies in mice.

More human studies begin in Sweden next month and Australians will join a major international trial of the drug next year.

If the data is from mice, then the above clinical trial is presumably a phase I clinical trial, which is designed to show safety and not efficacy. It could be a while before human data is available.

Of course, none of this will stop investors believing the article ;-)

Re:Mad Cow Disease Link?

[lintux]

AFAIK BSE/The mad cow disease is only connected to the Creutzfeldt Jakob Disease.

Or is CJD related to Alzheimer?

Re:Major news for nursing homes

[montyzooooma]

I was going to write that I didn't think Alzheimer's affected that big a proportion of the elderly but then I actually googled the numbers and apparently it affects 10% of the over 65s and 50% of the over 85s (found here: http://www.alz.org/maintainyourbrain/overview.asp [alz.org] )

Those are actually pretty serious numbers and far higher than I thought.

Re:Mad Cow Disease Link?

[arkhan_jg]

They're not linked per se, but they have a lot of symptom similarities, which makes scientists think that the molecular mechanism underlying both of them could be the same [bbc.co.uk].

This means that a treatment for one, *might* give insights into treatments for the other, not that a drug will treat both. nvCJD (what BSE is in humans) and alzheimers are thought to be caused by buildups of different proteins, though they do have very similar structures.

I'll believe it when I see it

[BilZ0r]

Man, if drug companies are evil, this is where they are: hyping up compounds that have only begun to be tested in humans, just to pump up share prices (literally only begun, the announcement of the plan to test this drug in humans was made in May 2006). Although the preclinical, rodent data is good, drugs which have treated the transgenic models of Alzhiemer's have fallen flat many times before. It's worth noting that this same company had the drug PBT1 already being trialed in human Alzhimer's patients in 2003, but for some reason (*cough* probably toxic as hell *cough*) the trials were canceled, and this new drugs was rolled out. Again, skepticism is the order of the day for pharmaceutical company press releases.