‘Ex­cit­ed to be back’: Roche’s se­quel to failed Alzheimer’s an­ti­body looks promis­ing in ear­ly study

A year ago, Roche’s fu­ture in Alzheimer’s dis­ease looked un­cer­tain. At an Alzheimer’s con­fer­ence in San Fran­cis­co, the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­ny an­nounced that its amy­loid-tar­get­ing an­ti­body gan­tenerum­ab failed to slow cog­ni­tive de­cline in a piv­otal 2,000-pa­tient study. The de­gree of amy­loid re­moval was un­ex­pect­ed­ly low, and Roche halt­ed on­go­ing stud­ies of the drug.

But the Swiss phar­ma hasn’t giv­en up on the dis­ease. At this year’s edi­tion of the Clin­i­cal Tri­als on Alzheimer’s Dis­ease con­fer­ence, this time in Boston, Roche pre­sent­ed pre­lim­i­nary da­ta of a new an­ti­body based on gan­tenerum­ab that’s been mod­i­fied to slip across the pro­tec­tive blood-brain bar­ri­er more eas­i­ly than its pre­de­ces­sor.

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