'Very over sol­d': Biotech brags about PhII Alzheimer's da­ta, but ex­perts are un­der­whelmed

In a field now de­fined by Bio­gen’s Aduhelm — and the storm of con­tro­ver­sy around it — what con­sti­tutes “in­dus­try-lead­ing” da­ta for an Alzheimer’s drug?

Alzheon, a lit­tle biotech de­vel­op­ing an oral amy­loid-clear­ing tablet, is tak­ing a stab at it.

Re­port­ing six-month da­ta from a Phase II bio­mark­er tri­al in­volv­ing 84 pa­tients, Alzheon an­nounced that ALZ-801, or valil­tramiprosate, spurred a 29% re­duc­tion in a bio­mark­er called plas­ma p-tau181 — which it said is sev­en-fold greater than that trig­gered by oth­er an­ti-amy­loid an­ti­bod­ies. Paired with “sig­nif­i­cant im­prove­ment” in a mem­o­ry test while not spec­i­fy­ing how much, the num­bers val­i­date its ap­proach and of­fer “a clear path for­ward with our mol­e­cules,” ac­cord­ing to CEO Mar­tin To­lar.

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