Biogen is seeking to resurrect an Alzheimer's disease drug from a trial it discontinued earlier this year, as Time magazine reports.
The drug, aducanumab, appeared in early studies to both decrease the amount of amyloid protein that accumulates in Alzheimer's patients' brains and limit cognitive decline. But Biogen terminated trials it was conducted after an early analysis indicated that the results were not a promising as hoped, Time adds. But now after delving further into the full data, the company is seeking approval for aducanumab from the US Food and Drug Administration.
As Time reports, Biogen found when it looked through the data again that one of its two trials did show that the treatment might have been influencing cognitive decline. The firm traced the difference between the trials to a change it made to the study design, namely that in one, people with alterations in the ApoE gene were given lower doses of the drug, it says. As the Wall Street Journal notes, patients with that genetic variant who were given a higher does experienced less cognitive decline.
"If approved, this drug would make Alzheimer's disease a treatable condition, from a biological point of view. This would be major league," Steven Salloway tells Time.