DONANEMAB

18th July, 2023 Science and Technology

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Context: A new drug for Alzheimer's disease has shown promising results in clinical trials, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine. The drug, called donanemab, is an antibody that targets a protein called amyloid-beta, which accumulates in the brains of people with Alzheimer's and is thought to cause damage to neurons.

Details

Donanemab is a new drug for Alzheimer's disease, it is designed to bind to and clear away amyloid-beta plaques, which are clumps of the protein that form in the brain.
The trial involved 257 participants with early-stage Alzheimer's, who were randomly assigned to receive either donanemab or placebo by intravenous infusion every four weeks for 76 weeks.
The primary outcome was the change in a cognitive and functional score called the Integrated Alzheimer's Disease Rating Scale (iADRS), which ranges from 0 to 144, with higher scores indicating better performance.
- The researchers also measured the change in amyloid-beta levels in the brain using positron emission tomography (PET) scans.

More about the research

The results showed that donanemab significantly slowed the decline in iADRS scores. This means that donanemab reduced the rate of cognitive and functional decline.
The research concluded that donanemab is effective and safe for slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease in people with early-stage symptoms.
It noted that donanemab is the second drug to show positive results in a trial for Alzheimer's, after aducanumab, another antibody that targets amyloid-beta.
- Aducanumab was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), despite controversy over its efficacy and safety data.
It suggested that donanemab and aducanumab may have different mechanisms of action and may benefit different subgroups of patients with Alzheimer's. It also said that more research is needed to confirm the long-term effects of donanemab and to compare it with other treatments for Alzheimer's.