2023-05-06 16:00:00
The company reported that the monoclonal antibody donanemab slows worsening in patients with early-stage disease.
By: isbelia farias
In the fight once morest Alzheimer’s, a new drug experimental moves to the list of new generation of therapies. The protagonist is the pharmaceutical company Lilly, which announced that the monoclonal antibody, donanemab, directed once morest the amyloid protein, a precursor of the disease, can delay cognitive decline by up to 35% in symptomatic patients, in early stages. However, the full study, as well as the results, are yet to come to light.
However, many experts are already celebrating the achievement, while asking for caution, since it is not a cure for the disease, but a brake that stops the irreversible advance of this condition.
What is certain is that Donanemab joins the revolutionary options to deal with a disease that affects 50 million people around the world and for which, to date, there is no cure.
This disease develops silently for 15 or 20 years, until the first symptoms begin, when the neurological damage is already impossible to reverse. For this reason, the scientific community focuses on the earliest stages of this disease, even before the first signs appear.
This explains why scientists have focused on amyloid protein plaques, as Albert Lleó, head of neurology at Hospital Sant Pau, in Barcelona, Spain, explains: “The accumulation of amyloid is the earliest lesion, but these plaques are outside the neurons Over time, these neurons degenerate and the TAU protein is created, which is what causes damage to the brain synapse [la conexión entre neuronas]”From a biological point of view, adds the neurologist, people who have more amyloid and more TAU are at a more advanced level of the disease.
Precisely, donanemab goes once morest the amyloid protein, it binds to plaques and marks so that the immune system recognizes and eliminates them. In a phase III trial with more than 1,700 people between the ages of 60 and 85 with symptomatic Alzheimer’s, but in an early phase, the researchers found, Lilly explains in a statement, that this drug caused a slowdown in cognitive and functional decline.
Adverse effects
The neurologist from Sant Pau also points out that these drugs are not innocuous. There are risks and you have to take them into account. The company has admitted, in fact, that there are side effects—in slang, amyloid-related MRI abnormalities (ARIAs)—such as cerebral edema (swelling) and microbleeds: 24% of those treated with donanemab had brain inflammation, although only 6% experienced symptoms; 31.4% of the arm that received the drug and 13.6% of the placebo group also had microbleeds.
“Removing amyloid from the brain can cause brain inflammation that is usually asymptomatic and transient, but it forces people who take this to have MRIs,” Lleó justifies. Lilly has reported the death of three people, two of whom were directly attributed to these serious effects and a third, who died following suffering one of these pictures. “We are encouraged by the potential clinical benefits that donanemab may provide, although like many effective treatments for debilitating and life-threatening conditions, there are associated risks that can be serious and life-threatening,” Mark Mintun, group vice president for Research in Donanemab, admitted in a statement. Lilly Neurosciences and Development.
Fuente: here
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