aducanumab

aducanumab – (a do ka nu mab)

January 7, 2020 UPDATE

The FDA recently allowed the researchers to continue doing the clinical trials with this drug, which is very encouraging. Look for on-going updates in the news or on this site.

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So what is this word and what does it mean?

You may have seen or heard the news within the last week when they announced the world’s disappointment with the news from Biogen and Eisai (drug research companies) regarding the failure of the Alzheimer’s, hopeful drug they have been testing over the past 3 years. 3 years of testing at a cost of $830 million.

The great disappointment after all the testing that has been done to date, is that this drug is now considered a “FAILURE” and all clinical trials have been halted. The companies determined that “the drug was unlikely to help patients … and the discontinuation wasn’t related to safety concerns.”

This is not just a disappointment to researchers and those in the medical field, but aducanumab was a sign of hope for all those families across the world who have a loved one with Alzheimer’s. Hope that this would be the “cure” that would be available for their grandchildren and great-grandchildren…. that this disease would be eradicated from the face of the earth.

So now, the researchers and the those providing the dollars to make the research possible have to, in a sense, start from scratch. They have to evaluate what has been done and search out other potential answers to this devastating disease. There will be a cure or a remedy one day, we just don’t know when it will happen and what it will look like.

Source: The Providence (RI) Journal, Robert Langrath Bloomberg, 3.25.19