An experimental Alzheimer’s drug made by Eli Lilly slowed cognitive decline in early-stage patients, data confirmed Monday, putting it on course to be the second treatment approved within months that alters the course of the disease.
by 27 percent over 18 months compared with placebo. That represented a five-month slowdown in progression.If donanemab is cleared, there would be two drugs on the market shown to affect the course of Alzheimer’s — a striking development considering decades of failure involving efforts to develop disease-modifying treatments.
Unlike Leqembi, patients in the donanemab trial were taken off the drug once most of the amyloid plaque was removed — which occurred in many patients in a year, Lilly said. Being able to stop the treatment — rather than having it continue indefinitely — could provide comfort to Medicare and other insurers who will foot the bill for the drug, and for patients who don’t relish the prospect of a lifetime of treatments.
Lilly disagreed with Rabinovici’s assessments, saying donanemab helped even the high tau patients given the drug, even though the benefit was much smaller. Data showed the drug slowed decline by 6 percent in the high tau group as measured by one assessment tool and by 17 percent as measured by another. Fillit of the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation said he doubted that the FDA would require the scans as a requirement for starting treatment.
Soon, patients and doctors might face a difficult choice: whether to try donanemab, Leqembi — or neither.