The New Alzheimer's Drug: Hope or a Massive Failure?

The Brain Health Revolution Podcast

Dean and Ayesha Sherzai

Life Sciences, Intelligence, Alzheimers, Mood, Mind, Stroke, Brain, Iq, Braincapacity, Anxiety, Brainy, Mental, Depression, Science, Memory, Parkinson, Dementia, Longevity, Health, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 604 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2021

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Welcome to the Brain Health Revolution Podcast! In this episode, we took a deep dive into the history and steps of FDA approval of the latest Alzheimer's drug, Aducanumab. Developed by the biotechnology company, Biogen, it is the first approved drug that attempts to treat a possible cause of the neurodegenerative disease rather than just the symptoms. But the approval has sparked a contentious debate over whether the drug is effective. Many experts, including an independent panel of neurologists and biostatisticians, advised the FDA that clinical-trial data did not conclusively demonstrate that Aducanumab could slow cognitive decline. Yet patient advocacy groups tout this as a miracle drug and one that provides hope and opens the doors for future therapeutics for this devastating disease.

In this episode, we discuss:

- The history of drug development for Alzheimer's

- Amyloid and Tau protein targeting

- How this drug was presented in 2019, rejected, reapplication by Biogen, its reanalysis data and final approval by FDA on June 7, 2021

- Side effects of the drug

- Price and the economics around the drug

- Long term consequences to the field

https://teamsherzai.com

Instagram: @sherzaimd

Facebook: Sherzai MD

Twitter: @sherzaimd

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the Brain Health Revolution podcast with your hosts, Aisha and Dean Cherzai.
0:17.0	We're very excited to be here today to speak with you all about one of the most stirring conversations in the last week, one that has generated quite a lot of controversy and a lot of pushback from the medical and the scientific community against FDA and a pharmaceutical company.
0:34.1	We are talking about aducanomab, which is the first medication that modifies
0:41.3	Alzheimer's disease that has been approved after about 18 years. Correct. I mean, as far as
0:48.1	disease modification, ever. Right. Because the medications that were approved previously were
0:53.8	symptomatic drugs. They were never
0:56.0	assumed to slow down or alter the disease process. Exactly. Exactly. So let me just kind of give
1:03.1	our audience a little bit of background of what this means and what this medication essentially
1:08.3	represents. So until now, there has not been any disease-altering therapies to offer for Alzheimer's patients.
1:16.6	And aducanumab, or adohelm, its market name, was developed by the biotechnology company Biogen in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1:26.3	And it is touted to treat Alzheimer's disease rather
1:32.8	than just the symptoms.
1:33.9	Currently, the medications that we have in the market and for doctors to prescribe are only
1:39.9	symptomatic.
1:41.0	There are only a handful of them that we use in the clinic.
1:43.3	Yes, yes. We have Erosept, or Denepazil. We have Residine. And then we have Nameda, which is a
1:50.3	different kind of category of drugs or Mementi. None of these have long-term effects. The disease
1:57.2	progresses at the rate that it progresses. This drug at acunamab actually purports to
2:02.8	slow down the process. Exactly. And that has been controversial. Exactly. So the whole theory of
2:10.1	amyloid beta protein as the driving force of Alzheimer's disease was essentially discovered or,
2:19.4	you know, brought up in the 1980s,
2:25.6	wasn't it? Yeah. Well, the reality is that we're talking about how this drug works. This drug is supposed to work by eliminating amyloid, which is a protein that's been associated with Alzheimer's.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Dean and Ayesha Sherzai, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Dean and Ayesha Sherzai and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.