Suzanne is joined by Dr. Paul Winner, the Senior Director of the Premiere Research Institute and Attending Neurologist at Palm Beach Neurology in West Palm Beach, Florida, to talk about advances in Alzheimer's research.
Dr. Winner says, “There's definitely a lot of optimism for patients with Alzheimer's. We've started to understand this disease a little better. We understand a lot more about amyloid, its toxic form, about tau, how it progresses, how there's nerve damage. These are all targets, these are all options to stop them. So our targeted research is to try to remove the toxic amyloid, to prevent its formation, to uncouple it, make it easier to be removed. There are basically plaques and tangles, amyloid and tau. Also to address the glial cell for inflammation. These are all targets — these are all options, and all of these are being tested right now, and there is definitely optimism in several of them. Some we feel we'll have some FDA approved medicines, possibly in 2023, definitely within the next two or three years.
“We we try to be very positive, but we do have to be a little careful. We do not have the ability today to stop Alzheimer's dementia. Let's make that clear. We do not have a cure. That's okay, we're working to that. But we can slow the progression of the illness. And we have shown we were able to remove amyloid. It takes 15 to about 22 years for the amyloid to be deposited. During all that time, it's causing trouble, damage, inflammation, cell death, production of tau. You want to get there even before patients have clinical symptoms. How in the world could we do that?
“Well, we have bio-markers now — we can tell if someone has positive amyloid, positive tau, positive nerve damage, even though it's not really affecting their life yet. So we can do that today, and those studies are ongoing, we are doing it now, I have patients under treatment. Then there's people who have mild cognitive impairment who come in voluntarily: They're starting to forget things. They've got to make lists to go to the grocery store, they're forgetting names, which they never did before. Or they need directions, they need someone else to help them in the car to drive, they need someone else to help them with the checkbook, because they're making too many mistakes. This is where we can slow down the deposition of amyloid in the brain — that's been done. In fact, there's already a medicine, aducanumab, that's FDA approved, but there are a lot of issues around it, and it's only used still in research primarily.
“But two others have shown very significant promise recently in Phase 2 studies. The clinical relevance is still being determined and it doesn't happen right away. It takes about six months to a year plus to remove amyloid to about a 60 to 70+ percent, and it takes about 18 months for us to really see what I've just observed, but this is significantly positive. The medicine does what it's supposed to do. It removes the amyloid, and you had less of a decline in the group that was on this active medicine.
“There're many other advances in Alzheimer's research. We're looking at anti inflammatory-type medicines, neuro-protective type medicines. Those are a little bit in their earlier studies, but we do have some promise.”
Learn more about the Athira Pharma Alzheimer's LIFT-AD research study, Interested in learning more? Contact Premiere Research Institute at (561) 296-3838, contact Dr Winner at (561) 851-9400 or learn more about him here. This podcast is courtesy of Athira Pharma.
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