ROCHE: Gantenerumab fracasa en estudios sobre Alzheimer’s disease

 

CNN — An experimental treatment, gantenerumab, failed to help people at high risk of memory loss from Alzheimer’s or those who were in the early phases of the disease, the manufacturer said Monday.

Gantenerumab is part of a class of injected drugs that are designed to remove sticky protein pieces called beta amyloid from the brain. Beta amyloid buildup is a hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.

Most of these drugs have worked as intended to clear the beta amyloid, but many have still failed to demonstrate any real-life benefits to patients; their brain function and memory doesn’t improve significantly, despite treatment.

Roche said Monday that gantenerumab appears to have removed less beta amyloid from the brains of study participants than anticipated. The company said the results from Phase 3 of its trials, called Graduate, were hard but important to share.

“So many of our families have been directly affected by Alzheimer’s, so this news is very disappointing to deliver,” Dr. Levi Garraway, Roche’s chief medical officer and head of global product development, said in a news release. “While the GRADUATE results are not what we hoped, we are proud to have delivered a high quality, clear and comprehensive Alzheimer’s dataset to the field, and we look forward to sharing our learnings with the community as we continue to search for new treatments for this complex disease.” Más