Drug to slow Alzheimer’s ‘ready next year’

The therapies appear to slow patients' cognitive decline
The therapies appear to slow patients' cognitive decline
KAYLA WOLF/ AP

Doctors are hopeful that the first drug capable of slowing the advance of Alzheimer’s disease will be ready by the middle of next year, one of Britain’s leading experts on the condition has said.

Two experimental therapies that appear to slow patients’ cognitive decline by washing the physical signs of dementia out of the brain have shown early promise in clinical trials.

If they work, the drugs will galvanise a new wave of treatments for Alzheimer’s, according to John Hardy, a professor of neuroscience at University College London.

He said researchers around the world depended heavily on the success or failure of Eli Lilly’s solanezumab and Biogen’s aducanumab, both of which appear to have slowed patients’ cognitive decline by using antibodies to attack beta amyloid