Australian study gives new hope on Alzheimer’s
An Australian discovery using a new experimental drug, has led to a significant drop in levels of the Abeta protein, believed to cause Alzheimer’s disease, and helped patients perform better in two tests of language and reasoning ability.
In the trial, 78 Australian and Swedish patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s took a tablet of the new drug PBT2, developed by Melbourne’s Prana Biotechnology, every day for 12 weeks.
By the end of the trial the patients had a drop in Abeta and were functioning at a better level in both reasoning and language.
Prana chief executive, Geoffrey Kempler, said that “cure” is a big word.
“But I believe we have discovered a treatment for Alzheimer’s. The results give us a very high hope that PBT2 will be the world’s first tablet to treat the underlying causes of the disease”.
Mr Kempler said that the trial had mainly aimed at testing the drug’s safety and ability to lower the levels of the Abeta protein.
“The improvements in language and reasoning by the patients during the trial were an added bonus”, he said.
Henry Brodaty, of the Dementia Collaborative Research Centre at the University of NSW, expressed cautious optimism over the trial.
He said that the signs are good.
“But there have been other Alzheimer’s drugs that got to this stage of development, looked promising, and failed the next step”, he told The Age newspaper.
