New Alzheimer's Drug Shows Promise

Alzheimer's Patients Like 65-Year-Old Carol Daly May Get New Hope From Experimental Drug

(CBS/ AP)  For the first time, an experimental drug shows promise for halting the progression of Alzheimer's disease by taking a new approach: breaking up the protein tangles that clog victims' brains.

The encouraging results from the drug called Rember, reported Tuesday at a medical conference in Chicago, electrified a field battered by recent setbacks. The drug was developed by Singapore-based TauRx Therapeutics.

Even if bigger, more rigorous studies show it works, Rember is still several years away from being available, and experts warned against overexuberance. But they were excited.

"These are the first very positive results I've seen" for stopping mental decline, said Marcelle Morrison-Bogorad, director of Alzheimer's research at the National Institute on Aging. "It's just fantastic."

The federal agency funded early research into the tangles, which are made of a protein called tau and develop inside nerve cells.

For decades, scientists have focused on a different protein - beta-amyloid, which forms sticky clumps outside of the cells - but have yet to get a workable treatment.

"The field is really having a major shift right now where a lot of emphasis is going to be on the tangles," Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy of Duke University School of Medicine told CBS News. "By stabilizing these tangles, you can fundamentally protect the cell in an Alzheimer's brain from being attacked and dying"

The drug is in the second of three stages of development, and scientists are paying special attention to potential treatments because of the enormity of the illness, which afflicts more than 26 million people worldwide and is mushrooming as the population ages.

CBS News medical correspondent Dr. Jonathan LaPook spoke with 65-year-old Carol Daly, an Alzheimer's patient in the stage of the disease where she knows all too well what she has lost and what she is still losing. She spoke of losing her ability to do things she used to do often, like cooking.

"It stopped. It just, I just couldn't do it," Daly said. "I don't know what to do first. You have to be in this position … It's terrible, it really is."

Daly currently takes Namenda and Aricept - two of the five FDA-approved drugs for Alzheimer's. But they only treat the symptoms, not the root cause of the disease.

TauRx's chief is Claude Wischik, a biologist at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland who long has done key research on tau tangles and studies suggesting that Rember can dissolve them.

He is an "esteemed biologist," and the research "comes with his credibility attached to it," said Dr. Sam Gandy of Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. He heads the scientific advisory panel of the Alzheimer's Association.

In the study, 321 patients were given one of three doses of Rember or dummy capsules three times a day. The capsules containing the highest dose had a flaw in formulation that kept them from working, and the lowest dose was too weak to keep the disease from worsening, Wischik said.

However, the middle dose helped, as measured by a widely used score of mental performance.

"The people on placebo lost an average of 7 percent of their brain function over six months whereas those on treatment didn't decline at all," he said.

After about a year, the placebo group had continued to decline but those on the mid-level dose of Rember had not. At 19 months, the treated group still had not declined as Alzheimer's patients have been known to do.

Two types of brain scans were available on about a third of participants, and they show the drug was active in brain areas most affected by tau tangles, Wischik said.

"This is suggestive data," not proof, Wischik warned. The company is raising money now for another test of the drug to start next year.

The main chemical in Rember is available now in a different formulation in a prescription drug sometimes used since the 1930s for chronic bladder infections - methylene blue. However, it predates the federal Food and Drug Administration and was never fully studied for safety and effectiveness, and not in the form used in the Alzheimer's study, Wischik and other doctors cautioned.

On Monday at the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, other researchers reported encouraging results from a test of a different experimental drug that also targets tau tangles. That drug, by British Columbia-based Allon Therapeutics Inc., was tested in people with an Alzheimer's precursor, mild cognitive impairment.

The tau-drug results are in stark contrast to the flop of Flurizan, which was aimed at blocking enzymes that form the beta-amyloid clumps. Myriad Genetics announced in June that it would abandon development of Flurizan after the failure, the biggest clinical trial of any Alzheimer's drug to date. Full results were presented at the conference Tuesday.

Also due out are full results of a closely watched test of bapineuzumab, an experimental drug that aims to enlist the immune system to clear out the sticky brain clumps.

Its developers - New Jersey-based Wyeth and the Irish company Elan Corp. PLC - previously announced that the 240-patient study missed its main goal of improving patients' mental performance at 18 months.

But the company found a silver lining - the drug appeared to help the roughly 60 percent of people in the study who did not have a gene that scientists think makes Alzheimer's disease more severe.

Scientists were eager for information on side effects and possible magnitude of benefit for the drug, which the companies have already said will move on to late-stage testing in more than 4,000 patients.

"What we are going to see in the future is not just drugs that attack plaque of tangles, but a two pronged therapy," said Doraiswamy. "We are hoping that will be like the Holy Grail for the field."

Daly is hoping to enter a trial of one of these new treatments. In the meantime, she waits for a cure as her most precious memories fade.

"How long have you been married for?" asked LaPook.

"Don't know," Daly replied.

"But just two minutes ago, I told you 44 years," said LaPook.

"This is what happens though," she said.

[kenhamlett]

"The article says the main ingredient is methylene blue. "

Indeed this drug/industrial chemical has been around longer than most of the readers of this article. It is promising research for halting the disease but I think it shows more hope from the standpoint that researchers have FINALLY started taking approaches to address the autoimmune activity instead of focusing on side issues.
If we can halt it, some day we can prevent it. Hopefully research will progress in bypassing or reversing the damage to restore most of the functionality of those already afflicted. The memories and skills are still there as long as the cells remain viable. We have to unlock them.
This is an article that offers some hope!

[nottellin1]

Reported by CBSnews recently that THC helps prevent Alzheimer''s. From experience I can tell you that it also helps with the symptoms. Tried and tested on my own dear Mom last Thanksgiving. She was actually able to speak coherently to my bro & sis on the phone. Sadly, no long term effects as a treatment after it wears off.

Dear usclimey yes i read the article and I have had chemistry in college. I take it you push unnatural products for a living. Poison your own family I have no problem with it and apparently you don''t either.

[downsteamjim]

To re35: Unlike you I hope this medicine works. You apparently hate capitalism so bad that you would rather see people suffer a terrible disease. Go to a nursing home and see Alzheimer in action.

[usclimey]

Posted by baileycc

Well you''re a cheery soul aren''t you. If you read the article at all you''d find that methylene blue has been around for a long time - chances are, in fact, if you ever passed a chemistry course, which I doubt, you used it as an acid/base indicator. Thus the drug should be relatively inexpensive, and it is proven to work at this level. Please keep your negativity to yourself in the future.

[rf35]

...any promising research is just that, promising, and I thank God for it.
Posted by handmaiden2

Really? How about asking him to prevent the disease? By your logic, he apparently targets people to get Alzheimer''s, so why would he allow a cure or effective treatment? Instead of praying, thank the company developing this drug or the researcher who came up with the formula.
Of course, a cure may already exist, but cures don''t produce long-term profits, only drugs that you have to take for life. Treatment, not cure, is the goal of pharmaceutical companies.

[oneworldusa]

I''ve known 2 people who died of Alzheimer''s. It is because of this and other similar conditions that take away all quality of life that I believe in ''Kevorkianism'' to some extent.

The problem with Kevorkianism (religion aside) is that it would be abused horribly as a ''legal'' way to simply kill someone. Allowing dignified death would require a LOT of regulation and checks and balances.

I''d much rather see this method with humane shots by far than simply removing a feeding tube and allowing someone in such poor health to starve to death or die of thirst.

[johngoodnews]

The article says the main ingredient is methylene blue. In a lot of countries where malaria is a problem, methylene blue is a readily available, cheap, and I think effective, anti-malarial drug even though you can end up looking like a smurf when you use it.

[randynason]

If history has taught us anything a new drug is very expensive and will have dismal results. This drug could be worst than the disease because the drug as always is synthetic and foreign to the body and the brain. Big Pharma''''s coffers will be the only winner.


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Posted by baileycc

You''re absolutely right-on. People would do better to pay attention to their diet and to what food and drink they put into their bodies, than to rely upon synthetic medication meant to make the drug companies rich.

[randynason]

I wonder if this new drug will be of any benefit to Gramps McSame during his upcoming election battle? Maybe he''ll be able to remember where he is and who he is talking to, now. Perhaps one of the side-effects will be complete and utter friendliness and an easy-going nature, but I''m not holding my breath.

[barbaraf4]

Awakenings!

[vnveteran72]

LIEberman: "Hello"??,..."TauRx Therapeutics"???
"Yea, could you ship me 10, 55 Gal. Drums Overnight Express, Delivered to McBush Headquarters"???......
"Yea, I''ll hold".....

[handmaiden2]

It''s unfortunate that so many people make jokes about this topic. Demonstrates either their ignorance of the facts or lack of personal experience with dementia. This is a very real, growing problem for humanity, and any promising research is just that, promising, and I thank God for it. I know that new drugs are expensive, but so is dementia, especially alzheimer''s. Expensive to the families dealing with it, expensive to the government who financially supports those suffering from the disease. Please pray for families involved, rather than making jokes about it.

history by far has not taught us that, your a negative person who if you had the condition would be singing a different tune. sure refinments and more development will be needed, Its given some hope to an otherwise dismall situation .more power to the firms on the right path.

[tfheringer]

Oh! Great by the time it is ready for me if I get the disease, I will not be able to afford it, but Obama will he is wealthy and can afford it. Maybe he will let me share his. Some one is slated to make a fist full of money off of this, you know they are going to offer this at a price so high we can not afford it. If I sound bitter I am, I use to be able to half way trust politicians now I think they are all liars and deserve each other. Why do we not have Obama and McCain share the office that way maybe they will shoot each other.

[mcsuicide247]

HOW OLD IS JOHN MCCAIN?

[benighse]

GET SOME OF THIS TO JOHN MCCAIN RIGHT AWAY!! HE''LL BE READY FOR A ROCKIN'' CHAIR AND THE MANOR HOUSE BEFORE YOU KNOW IT!

If history has taught us anything a new drug is very expensive and will have dismal results. This drug could be worst than the disease because the drug as always is synthetic and foreign to the body and the brain. Big Pharma''s coffers will be the only winner.