How Well Does A New Alzheimer's Drug Work For Those Most At Risk?

Short Wave

NPR

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🗓️ 13 March 2023

⏱️ 14 minutes

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Summary

A new drug for Alzheimer's disease, called lecanemab, got a lot of attention earlier this year for getting fast-tracked approval based on a clinical trial that included nearly 1,800 people. It was the most diverse trial for an Alzheimer's treatment to date, but still not enough to definitively say if the drug is effective for Black people. "[In] the world's most diverse Alzheimer's trial, a giant trial of 1,800 people that lasted for a much longer time than most trials did, we're still not sure that all of the groups that are at highest risk of Alzheimer's disease actually see any kind of benefit," says Dr. Jonathan Jackson, Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School.

On today's episode, Jonathan and Short Wave co-host Emily Kwong delve into how drug developers can overlook those hardest hit by the disease they're trying to treat.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	You're listening to shortwave from NPR.
0:05.6	There was a big announcement in January from the FDA.
0:08.8	They were accelerating approval for a drug called Lecanemab.
0:12.9	The US Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug that appears to slow down the progression
0:17.6	of Alzheimer's disease.
0:19.0	Now, in clinical trials, Lecanemab's effects on early Alzheimer's disease were pretty
0:24.0	small.
0:25.0	Hundreds of patients who took the drug, cognitive decline slowed by about 27%.
0:30.2	But that was enough to trigger excitement in both patients and scientists because, well,
0:34.9	nothing else has worked that well.
0:36.9	The drug met two endpoints, clearing amyloid plaques in the brain and slowing the rate of
0:41.8	cognitive decline.
0:43.6	That is unprecedented.
0:44.6	We haven't been able to do that before.
0:47.0	Dr. Jonathan Jackson has been following this research closely.
0:51.0	He's an assistant professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School and the Executive
0:55.4	Director of the Care Research Center, which stands for Community Access, Recruitment,
1:00.4	and Engagement.
1:01.9	It was cause for celebration, but as with anything scientific, there are lots and lots
1:06.4	of other questions that cropped up even as we got this good news.
1:10.5	One of those questions has come up over and over again in Alzheimer's drug trials, but
1:14.8	also across a lot of medical research, which is, did this study test the drug on a
	...

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