The Roche unit wanted to build a clinical trial program for its lead candidate gantenerumab that reflected the people who actually get the disease. That means—according to the Alzheimer’s Association—Black Americans and Hispanic people, who are much more likely to have the devastating neurodegenerative disease than white Americans. And yet they’ve historically been left out of trials for promising candidates.
Roche’s Genentech and AC Immune know they have a failed trial on their hands for the Alzheimer’s disease drug crenezumab. But the partners are still parsing through the data, trying to find signals that could inform the next wave of development in the neurodegenerative disease.
Rippon, who serves as vice president and chief medical partner of neurology, ophthalmology and internal medicine at Roche’s Genentech unit, was describing the disappointing news that had dropped a few days earlier that crenezumab had failed to impact the cognitive abilities or episodic memory function in a group of patients with an inherited form of Alzheimer’s during a phase 2 trial.
The litany of failed trials of amyloid-targeting drugs for Alzheimer’s disease has added another verse, as Roche concedes that its crenezumab candidate was unable to slow cognitive decline in patients with an inherited form of the disease.
AC Immune Provides Update On Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative Study Evaluating Crenezumab
Amid Shehnaaz Suliman’s lengthy resume it could be easy to miss her stint leading early-stage Alzheimer’s R&D at Genentech, where she oversaw a program for the ill-fated crenezumab and initiated one of the first prevention studies around the devastating neurodegenerative disease. But it is this experience that she — after thinking long and hard about her next career move over the past months — will be leaning heavily on as the first president and COO of Alector
Neurotrope this week joined the long line of biopharma companies that have been mauled by clinical failure for Alzheimer’s drugs. But their crushed shares ($NTRP down from more than $8 in June to penny stock range today) represented just a tiny drop in the bucket of red ink that has drained from players which have pursued the greatest of all Holy Grails in drug R&D. Decades of defeat, headlined by the likes of solanezumab at Eli Lilly stretching to the most recent snafu with Biogen’s aducanumab, have forced a slew of players to change course on their R&D strategy — or just leave it in limbo.
The fourth-quarter results season has already seen a host of unwanted projects cleared from pharma companies’ pipelines as they tighten their focus on the projects with the most chance of a good return on investment.
Is Biogen’s Aducanumab for Alzheimer’s the Holy Grail or Cold Fusion?
Roche, AC Immune drop Alzheimer drug trials after setback