Amyloid optimism

Results from the Phase III EXPEDITION3 trial of Eli Lilly and Co.’s solanezumab for mild Alzheimer’s disease could move the whole sector next month - whether they are good or bad. But John Hardy thinks data on Merck & Co. Inc.’s BACE inhibitor, expected in mid-2017, will be a better test of the amyloid hypothesis.

In 1992, Hardy and Gerald Higgins published their amyloid cascade hypothesis in Science. The paper outlined their case that the deposition of beta amyloid plaques in the brain is the driver of AD pathology and that neurofibrillary tangles, cell loss, vascular damage and dementia follow as a direct result of this deposition...