Science Needs to Move Beyond Luck If It Is to Design Better Drugs for the Brain

In an article from The Economist, the author focuses on mounting evidence that there is an increasingly robust and diverse drug pipeline – as cited in the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation’s latest Clinical Trials Report - offering reason for hope ahead in the treatment of Alzheimer's.

The report indicates that 75% of drugs currently in clinical trials are aimed at targets beyond the traditional amyloid and tau, including inflammation, metabolic dysfunction, and vascular disease. These novel targets are informed by the biology of aging, a theory the ADDF has been advocating for nearly 25 years that suggests we must address all the many, complex causes of Alzheimer’s to effectively treat the disease.

“Ultimately, the kind of combination therapies that are the standard of care for other major diseases of aging, such as heart disease and cancer, will be the best path forward to treat Alzheimer’s,” said Dr. Howard Fillit, ADDF’s Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer. “This means we will need an arsenal of drugs aimed at many different causes of disease that we can combine in different ways to target each patient’s unique pathology in a precision medicine approach.”

Read the full article, republished via Yahoo, here.