The FDA’s accelerated approval of Biogen’s drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease is a significant step — but there’s still a long way to go, experts say.
The Food and Drug Administration’s accelerated approval of Biogen’s drug to treat Alzheimer’s disease, is a significant step in the fight against the debilitating illness that destroys memory and other mental functions — but there’s still a long way to go, experts said.
“Alzheimer’s is one of the most incredibly difficult diseases that we know of,” said Charbel Moussa, associate professor of neurology and head of the laboratory for dementia and Parkinsonism at Georgetown University. Researchers have studied the “ideology” of the disease over the last 18 years, but there is still so much more to understand about it, Moussa said.
This treatment would not cure or partially reverse Alzheimer’s in any stage, either, DenBoer warned — those are unrealistic goals, at least for where researchers are in the fight against Alzheimer’s right now. “The best medication we have had at this point has shown an at-best 5% efficacy rate, and only in the very early stages of the disease,” he said.
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