Alzheimer’s research suffers again as promising drug shows no benefit and Pfizer pulls the plug on research programme

A drug that was believed to be a promising new therapeutic option for suffers of Alzheimer’s (idalopiridine) — from the Danish pharma company, Lundbeck — has failed to show clinical benefit in three randomised trials.

Published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, investigators revealed that in three randomised trials investigating a total of 2525 patients with Alzheimer’s disease, the addition of idalopiridine to cholinesterase inhibitor therapy did not reduce the amount of cognitive loss when compared with placebo over a period of 24 weeks. It was therefore concluded that the findings did not support the use of idalopiridine in the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease.

In the early phase work, the drug showed promise at potentially being able to improve cognition in patients, however, these results have not been replicated in further research. “I was personally very excited,” said professor Clive Ballard, co-author of the study from the University of Exeter, when discussing the research with The Guardian. “It is very disappointing that it then didn’t pan out.”

In a further blow to Alzheimer’s research, it was announced earlier this week that Pfizer will be ending its neuroscience discovery programme, including its research into Alzheimer’s disease treatment. With this news, the company announced it will be losing 300 positions and will be re-allocating the funds from the programme to areas where it may provide the best impact for patients.

Responding to this news, Dr James Pickett, head of Research at Alzheimer’s Society, stated: “Of course it’s disappointing to hear that Pfizer, one of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies, will be terminating their research efforts in neuroscience, including Alzheimer’s disease drug discovery. The brain is the most complex organ in the body and developing drugs to treat brain diseases is a tremendous challenge, but with no new drug for dementia in the last 15 years, this will come as a heavy blow to the estimated 46.8 million people currently living with the condition across the globe.

“There are still many reasons for people and families affected by dementia to maintain hope. The G7 nations have committed to finding a disease modifying treatment by 2025 and this is still within reach as long as research investment is increased and sustained across the board. Alzheimer’s Society has committed £50 million to fund new research at the UK Dementia Research Institute (UK DRI) alongside Alzheimer’s Research UK and the Medical Research Council. By working to understand the processes that cause dementia in unprecedented detail, the UK DRI researchers aims to reinvigorate the pipeline for drugs that can slow, stop or prevent this devastating condition.

“Every three seconds someone in the world develops dementia and, with this number set to rise, there has never been a more important time for such life-saving research. As we make progress in our understanding of the diseases that cause dementia, we hope pharma will unite with us to turn breakthroughs into treatments that could improve the lives of millions.”

These setbacks add to the growing list of failures in clinical drug trials (including that of Axovant last year, as reported by the Financial Times), which begs the question, why are these treatments failing?