Stu­art Lip­ton of­fers a new pos­si­ble rea­son why all the Alzheimer's drugs have failed

There are a few com­mon­ly trot­ted out rea­sons for why vir­tu­al­ly every Alzheimer’s drug of the last two decades has failed: Maybe the tri­als didn’t start ear­ly enough in the course of dis­ease, or maybe they didn’t go af­ter the right group of pa­tients?

As com­pa­nies have start­ed ear­li­er and on more se­lect groups of pa­tients, an­oth­er con­clu­sion has grown in­creas­ing­ly pop­u­lar: Maybe they’ve all gone af­ter the wrong tar­get. Maybe clear­ing the mis­fold­ed plaques that buildup in pa­tients’ brains, as these ther­a­pies have, just wipes away one symp­tom of the dis­ease but not the root cause.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER