Skepticism persists about revived Alzheimer’s drug after conference presentation
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/12/skepticism-persists-about-revived-alzheimer-s-drug-after-conference-presentation
Biogen says its experimental drug can slow cognitive decline in people with Alzheimer’s disease, but the claim has divided researchers.
When Samantha Budd Haeberlein, Biogen’s head of clinical development, took the stage in San Diego, California, before a room full of Alzheimer’s disease researchers and physicians this morning, she knew she had some explaining to do. In October, the pharmaceutical company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, unexpectedly revived an experimental Alzheimer’s drug that it had declared a failure 7 months earlier. Ever since, scientists and industry analysts have been hungry for more detail about two large clinical trials meant to prove that Biogen’s drug, an antibody called aducanumab, slows down cognitive decline in the early stages of disease.