Drug halts Alzheimer’s for up to three years

For the first time, researchers are reporting that a treatment might help stabilise Alzheimer’s disease for as much as three years, although the evidence is weak and in only four patients.

The drug is Gammagard, manufactured by Baxter International Inc. Doctors say that four patients who have been receiving the highest dose for three years showed no decline on memory and cognition tests. A dozen others on different doses or shorter treatment times did not fare as well.

This study was far too small to prove the treatment works, but one involving 400 patients will give results within a year.

William Thies, scientific director of the Alzheimer’s Association, said in Vancouver, Canada: “It’s tantalising. If you were to pick out four people with Alzheimer’s disease, the likelihood that they would perform the same on standardised tests three years later is very, very tiny.”

People typically go from diagnosis to death in about eight years, so to be stable for three “is a long time”.

“We shouldn’t get euphoric and we shouldn’t get unreasonable enthusiasm, but this is a positive piece of data.”

About 35m people worldwide have dementia, and Alzheimer’s is the most common type. There is no known cure.

Gammagard is intravenous immune globulin, or IVIG — multiple, natural antibodies culled from donated blood. Half a dozen companies sell IVIG to treat immune system and blood disorders. These antibodies may help remove amyloid, the sticky plaque that clogs patients’ brains, sapping memory and ability to think.

Yesterday, Dr Norman Relkin, head of a memory disorders program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, gave three-year follow-up results on 16 of 24 patients in an earlier study of Gammagard aimed at finding the right dose to use in the larger study. The other eight are no longer being followed, and at least some of them have died.

After the early study ended, some participants were kept on Gammagard and some who had been receiving dummy infusions were switched to it.

Relkin found:

nAs a group, the 11 patients started on various doses of Gammagard fared better than the five started on dummy infusions;

nThe five given dummy treatments declined more slowly after they were switched to Gammagard;

nAll four participants originally given the highest dose and kept on that dose for three years showed no decline in cognition.

Even a single patient who does not decline over three years is unusual, he said.

The 400-patient study, headed by Relkin, will end late this year, and results are expected early next year. Treating Alzheimer’s with IVIG would cost $2,000 (€1,600) to $5,000 every two weeks, depending on the patient’s weight, he said.

Two other experimental Alzheimer’s drugs are in late-stage studies that just ended. They are:

* Bapineuzumab by Pfizer Inc and Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Alzheimer Immunotherapy unit.

* Solanezumab, by Eli Lilly & Co.