Biotech Values

[genisi]

Gandy wrote the editorial in Lancet that accompanied the bapineuzumab pib-pet paper. In that editorial, he took much of his editorial space to talk about how dimebon was very promising and going to be a gamechanger in AD.

I'm not trying to attack nor defend Gandy, just want to set things straight; In the accompanying editorial in Lancet Neurology you've mentioned, Gandy did write one paragraph on Dimebon, but nowhere in that paper he called it "a gamechanger in AD" or something of that sort. Only thing he referred to as "something of a breakthrough" was the PiB-Pet work. Here is the relevant part from the paper:

Notably, also on the horizon in Alzheimer’s treatment is latrepirdine, a retired Russian antihistamine with surprising apparent benefit in both Alzheimer’s disease and Huntington’s disease. The mechanisms of action of latrepirdine are poorly understood but they are rapidly becoming a focus of great interest. New information suggests that the mechanisms might involve the protein aggregation phenomena that are involved in both diseases. Latrepirdine modulates amyloid-beta metabolism in vivo in amyloid precursor protein transgenic mice and accelerates clearance of protein deposits from synuclein transgenic mice. Although it is premature to say that we have effective, disease-modifying drugs available, these emerging data concerning both bapineuzumab and latrepirdine move us closer to the goal of understanding, treating, and, eventually, preventing major neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease

Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20189880