Rock Creek Pharmaceuticals Inc. (fka RCPIQ)

[Buddhahead]

In Alzheimer's, hope, hype and disappointment as biopharma goes all in on amyloid in 'Fierce biotech', Damian Garde, July 23, 2015

My comments: Has anyone looked at chronic inflammation as a prelude to Alzheimers? ie is CRP an pre-Alzheimers biomarker also?

Excerpts:
"By 2050, all living baby boomers will be over 85, and half of them will have Alzheimer's, according to a new report from the Lewin Center for Aging and Disability Policy. That phenomenon will come to account for nearly 25% of all Medicare spending, the group figures, up from an estimated 2% in 2020.

Dr. Dean Hartley
"It's a tsunami that's going to break the healthcare system," said Dr. Dean Hartley, director of science initiatives for the Alzheimer's Association.

And the prognosis has been similarly grim on the research side. Reviewing clinical trial data from 2002 to 2012, Cleveland Clinic researchers calculated a 99.6% failure rate for all would-be Alzheimer's treatments, including promising early technologies that proved toxic and high-profile breakthroughs that ultimately fizzled in the final stages of testing."

"With all that prologue, the eventual letdown was that much more dramatic. On Wednesday morning, Biogen revealed that not only did the 6 mg injection fail to come through as the "Goldilocks dose" it had hoped for, but it failed to measure up to even the 3 mg group. Aducanumab at 6 mg per kilogram didn't lead to a statistically significant improvement over placebo on two measures of cognition and function, effectively poking a hole in that dose-dependent efficacy response that stirred up excitement in March."

"But if the scientists are going to finally clear that hurdle, it's going to take more than a handful of candidates targeting amyloid, Hartley said. The field needs more clinical endeavors, more exploration of potential targets and more funding for basic research in order to build on the past decade's breakthroughs in the disease, he said.

"We now know the disease may start some 15 to 20 years prior to clinical symptoms," Hartley said. "That set us along the pathway of thinking of Alzheimer's as a continuum. … Now we need more shots on goal, in other words more drugs coming into those clinical trials.""

Article at:
http://www.fiercebiotech.com/story/alzheimers-hope-hype-and-disappointment-biopharma-goes-all-amyloid/2015-07-23