FINANCIAL TIMES – Dementia experts have hailed the latest landmark in the treatment of Alzheimer’s after Eli Lilly released trial results that showed its new drug significantly slowed memory loss and cognitive decline.
The US pharmaceuticals group on Monday reported full findings of its phase 3 clinical study of donanemab at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Amsterdam, showing that the antibody treatment slowed progression by about 35 per cent in the early stages of the disease.
The peer-reviewed results follow similar phase 3 findings released last November by US biotech Biogen and Japan’s Eisai for lecanemab, another antibody drug, which received full marketing approval from the US Food and Drug Administration this month under the brand name Leqembi.
Eli Lilly announced on Monday that it had submitted donanemab for FDA approval and expected a decision before the end of this year.
Submissions are under way to other global regulators.
Experts on dementia called Lilly’s donanemab presentation, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a landmark in the field.
“The past eight months have been a real turning point, as two drugs are shown to slow down the progression of the disease after decades of work with no positive findings,” said Richard Oakley, associate director of research at UK charity the Alzheimer’s Society.
The donanemab trial involved 1,736 participants with an average age of 73 who had mild to moderate symptoms of Alzheimer’s …
