99 Percent of Drug Trials on Alzheimer’s Unsuccessful

Rebecca Lewis July 04, 2014

The rate of Alzheimer’s disease is increasing worldwide. Unfortunately, until now, there is no potent drug that has been developed to cure this debilitating condition. In fact, 99% of drug trials for Alzheimer’s disease during the past decade have failed, according to a new study.

A team of researchers from Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Centre for Brain Health, in Las Vegas, headed by Dr Jeffrey Cummings, examined a public website that records clinical trials.

Between 2002 and 2012, they found 99.6% of trials of drugs aimed at preventing, curing or improving the symptoms of Alzheimer’s had failed or been discontinued.

This is higher than the failure rate of cancer drugs, which is 81%.

Drug failure rate is ‘alarming’

The failure rate is "especially troubling", according to Dr Simon Ridley of Alzheimer’s Research UK. "The authors of the study highlight a worrying decline in the number of clinical trials for Alzheimer’s treatments in more recent years," he said. "There is a danger that the high failure rates of trials in the past will discourage pharmaceutical companies from investing in dementia research.

"The only way we will successfully defeat dementia is to continue with high quality, innovative research, improve links with industry and increase investment in clinical trials."

Meanwhile, Dr Eric Hill of the School of Life and Health Sciences at Aston University said more research was needed to understand the complex mechanisms behind the disease.

"The development of better experimental models that could be incorporated into a battery of tests, will not only help us to understand the changes that occur in the brains of Alzheimer’s disease patients, but also provide tools for the development of new drug treatments that could slow or stop the onset of disease," he told BBC News.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, and affects more than 820,000 people in the UK, costing the government £23bn a year.

Source of this article:

Decline in trials for Alzheimer’s disease