As with Aricept, a mere Slowing of Dementia
Just read the new article in Nature, titled “Alzheimer’s drug slows mental decline in trial — but is it a breakthrough?” Lots of information on the new Alzheimer’s drug and the clinical trials data used to show safety and efficacy (such as they were).
Lots of negatives noted. I’ll let other readers of the article expound on them. But for Anavex (blarcamesine) as a potential competitor against Eisai and Biogen (lecanemab), one statement seemed worthy of consideration. In the clinical trial, “Participants received intravenous infusions of either lecanemab or a placebo every two weeks for the duration of the trial.”
Treatment of Alzheimer’s with lecanemab will require patients be injected with the drug every two weeks. With blarcamesine, a pill is swallowed once a day. For your demented grandmother with Alzheimer’s which would be the preferable therapeutic regimen?
Of course, the Biogen drug “...slowed the rate of cognitive decline for people in a clinical trial by 27%.” Grandmother still had Alzheimer’s, but her cognitive decline was slowed slightly (at a yet disclosed drug purchase cost). As with Aricept, the SOC (standard of care) drug for Alzheimer’s, patients on lecanemab will continue on a lethal progression of their dementia; just more slowly.
When the blarcamesine clinical results appear for Alzheimer’s, let’s compare how patients on both drugs fare with continued therapies. With lecanemab, a very slight slowing of the progression of dementia, ultimately resulting in death. With blarcamesine? Let’s wait and see. I’ll be holding my AVXL stock position; won’t be buying any BIIB shares. I’ve seen and learned from all of the existing clinical data on both murines (lab rodents) and humans with Alzheimer’s tested with blarcamesine.
